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INDEX 



PAGE 

Benjamin Franklin 

"The First Great American" 5 



George Washington 

"The Father of His Country" 39 

Thomas Jefferson 

"The Friend of the People"...., 95 

Abraham Lincoln 

"The Savior of His Country" 139 

Some Interesting Books _ _ _ 206 

Map 



AMERICA 

From the National Ode, July 4, 1876 

From the homes of all, where her being began, 
She took what she gave to Man: 
Justice, that knew no station. 

Belief, as soul decreed. 
Free air for aspiration, 

Free force for independent deed! 
She takes, but to give again, 
As the sea returns the rivers in rain; 
And gathers the chosen of her seed 
From the hunted of every crown and creed. 
Her Germany dwells by a gentler Rhine; 
Her Ireland sees the old sunburst shine; 
Her France pursues some dream divine; 
Her Norway keeps his mountain pine; 
Her Italy waits by the western brine; 
And. broad-based under all. 
Is planted England's oaken-hearted mood, 

As rich in fortitude 
As e'er went worldward from the island-wall! 

Fused in her candid light, 
To one strong race all races here unite; 
Tongues melt in hers, hereditary foemen 
Forget their sword and slogan, kith and clan. 

'T was glory, once, to be a Roman: 
She makes it glory, now, to be a man! 

Bayard Taylor. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 

THE FIRST GREAT AMERICAN 

"He snatched the lightning from heaven and their scepter 
from tyrants." 

In the reign of Good Queen Anne of England, ten 
little English colonies were struggling to gain a foot- 
hold on the eastern coast of North America. Smoke 
curled slowly upward from rough log cabins in the 
clearings of the silent forest. Close to the sea had 
sprung up a few small cities and towns — many of the 
towns not much larger than some of our villages of 
today. Their low, deep-roofed houses, wide of hearth, 
like those of the mother country, set back from narrow 
unpaved streets. 

There was just this fringe of English life along the 
shore. Behind it were three thousand miles of con- 
tinent filled with savage Indians. 

FATHER AND SON 

In the colony of Massachusetts, in the city of Boston, 
Benjamin Franklin was born January 17, 1706. He 
was the fifteenth of seventeen children, thirteen of 
whom lived to be men and women and founded homes 
of their own. He came of strong and vigorous stock. 
His father lived to be eighty-nine years of age; his 
mother, to be eighty-five. So far as Benjamin could 
remember, neither had ever been sick a day in their 
long lives. 

His father, Josiah Franklin, an emigrant from Eng- 



land, was an earnest, hard-working man with great 
skill in the use of all kinds of tools and a gift for 
music and drawing. His judgement was so respected 
that his friends and neighbors, and even the leading 
men of Boston, used to come to him for practical 
advice. After two years of schooling, Benjamin went 
to work, at the age of ten, in his father's shop. Mr. 
Franklin was a soap boiler and candle maker, so the 
small boy spent his time cutting wicks and filling molds 
for candles, tending shop and running errands. He 
hated this work and longed to go to sea. Swimming 
and pottering about boats, all his spare moments were 
spent near the water. He led the boys in their games 
and scrapes and became an expert swimmer. 

At last, his father, fearing that Benjamin would run 
away to sea, as an older brother had done, took him 
to see men of different trades at their work, hoping to 
arouse in the boy an interest in something that would 
keep him on land. Benjamin was always full of eager 
curiosity about everything in the world. He liked to 
watch work done well, and he learned to use his hands 
so skillfully, that he became an excellent mechanic. 
In after years he was able himself to make everything 
that he needed for the most difficult scientific experi- 
ments, and for the work of his inventions ; and he 
often did odd jobs about his home, when no workman 
could be had. 

Always Franklin had a passion for books. He says 
in the story he wrote of his own life: "I cannot re- 
member when I could not read." In those days there 
were no public libraries ; books were scarce ; in all 
America only four of the colonies had printing presses. 
Among his father's few books, he read over and over 
Plutarch's Lives of Great Men, a book that has helped 
and inspired many another young fellow who has after- 
wards become a great man himself. Saving his pen- 



nies, he bought a copy of Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 
He read this till he had learned it almost by heart. 
Then he sold it, and with the money, and a little more 
that he had saved, he bought forty or fifty small cheap 
histories. 

A BOY PRINTER IN BOSTON 

Because of this love for books, his father finally put 
Benjamin, when he was twelve years old, to work 
with his brother James, who was a printer. Now 
there was more chance for the boy to read. He 
shrewdly made many friends among the apprentices 
of book sellers, and persuaded them to lend him books 
from their masters' shelves. By the light of a farthing 
candle, made in his father's shop, he often read one of 
these books through the night and far into the morn- 
ing hours, that it might be returned to its place before 
the shops were opened. 

Reading soon led to Benjamin's writing short poems, 
which his brother sent him to peddle in the streets of 
Boston ; but his father put a stop to it by telling him 
plainly that poets were always beggars. About this 
time, there came into his hands a copy of the Spectator, 
an English paper that was soon to be famous. It 
was written by two men named Addison and Steele. 
He read it as he had read Plutarch's Lives; he patiently 
rewrote its essays in his own words, and then com- 
pared them with the Spectator and corrected them. 
In this way he tried to learn to write clearly and well. 
At the same time he trained his mind by studying 
navigation, arithmetic and grammar. 

To save money to buy the books he loved, he asked his 
brother to give him half of what it cost to board him, 
and let him provide his own food. After that a visitor 



to Franklin's shop, during the noon hour, would have 
found Benjamin, all alone, eagerly studying his books, 
while he munched a biscuit or a piece of bread, and 
a handful of raisins or a tart from the pastry shop — a 
poor meal that he washed down with a glass of water. 
He saved half the amount given him for food and 
collected quite a library. 

Ambitious to see something of his own printed in 
his brother's paper, The New England Courant, he slipped 
some pages that he had written under the door of the 
printing house. To his great joy they were printed 
and, after several such successes, he confessed that he 
had written them. 

SEEKING HIS FORTUNE 

James Franklin always acted toward his brother 
like a tyrant. He was harsh and hot tempered and 
often beat the boy. This treatment gave Benjamin 
a hatred of power unfairly used, and this hatred he 
never lost throughout his long life. Even as a boy he 
rebelled, and left his brother's shop. James prevented 
his finding work with any printer in Boston. So the 
resolute lad sold many of the books that had cost 
him so much in self-denial and saving, and secretly 
took passage for New York. Finding no work there, 
he set out for Philadelphia by boat. On this voyage 
he was nearly shipwrecked and, after many adventures 
crossing New Jersey fifty miles on foot, he took a row- 
boat down the Delaware to Philadelphia. 

Weary, hungry, wet and dirty, the pockets of his 
working clothes stuflfed out with shirts and stockings, 
his whole capital a Dutch dollar and a few pennies 
in copper, he landed at Market Street Wharf, Phila- 
delphia, alone in a strange city. 



He walked up the little unpaved street gazing curi- 
ously about him, till he met a boy with bread. He 
asked him the way to the baker's, hurried there and 
bought for three pence three great puffy rolls. He 
tucked one under each arm, and walked up Market 
Street devouring the third. Deborah Read, a young 
girl out on her father's door step, laughed heartily 
at his comical appearance, little dreaming that she 
would one day become his wife. Still eating, Franklin 
wandered about till he found himself again at the 
wharf, where he took a drink of the river water, and 
gave his other two rolls to a woman and her child who 
were there waiting for a boat. 

These are his own words, that tell what else he did 
that first Sunday in Philadelphia, and how he wandered 
into one of the silent religious meetings of the Quakers : 
"Thus refreshed I walked again up the street, which 
by this time had many clean dressed people in it, all 
walking the same way. I joined them and was thereby 
led into the great meeting house of the Quakers near 
the market. I sat down among them, and after looking 
around for a while and hearing nothing said, being 
very drowsy through labor and want of rest the pre- 
ceding night, I fell fast asleep and continued so until 
the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough to 
rouse me. Walking down again toward the river and 
looking in the faces of people, I met a young Quaker 
man whose countenance I liked, and, accosting him, 
requested he would tell me where a stranger could 
get lodging. He brought me to the 'Crooked Billet' 
in Water Street. Here I got dinner and, while I was 
eating it, several sly questions were asked me, as it 
seemed to be suspected from my youth and appearance 
that I might be some runaway." 

The boy quickly found work in Philadelphia with 



a printer named Keimer. By chance the Governor of 
Pennsylvania, Gov. Keith, saw some of Benjamin's 
writing and thought it very clever. By way of helping 
so promising a young fellow, the Governor sent him 
home to Boston, with a letter advising his father to 
furnish the money to set up this lad of seventeen as 
an independent printer in Philadelphia. 

This is how Franklin describes his visit home : "My 
unexpected appearance surprised the family; all were 
however, glad to see me and made me welcome, except 
my brother. I went to see him at his printing house, 
I was better dressed than ever while in his service, 
having a genteel new suit from head to foot, a watch, 
and my pockets lined with near five pounds sterling 
in silver;" — about $25 in our money — "he received me 
not very frankly, looked me all over and turned to his 
work again." 

Benjamin's father did not think it wise to establish 
so young a man in business. Gov. Keith, when he 
heard this, offered to do it himself, because, as he said, 
Philadelphia needed a good printer. With false prom- 
ises of letters and of money to buy an outfit in London, 
the faithless Governor sent the poor lad to England. 
Landing there on Christmas Eve, 1724, Franklin 
learned he had been deceived. He was bitterly dis- 
appointed, but, having to shift for himself, he wasted 
no time in regrets. At once he found work in London 
with a printer, and in this English shop, as he set the 
type, he preached temperance to his fellow workmen, 
who were great drinkers of beer. They were aston- 
ished to see that the "Water American" was stronger 
than they were, who drank "strong beer." 

After two years Franklin tired of London life and 
resolved to return to America, for the best that Eng- 
land now offered him seemed only a poor chance to a 

10 



young man of his ability and ambition. He had great 
skill in sports as well as strength of body, and his 
expert swimming had brought him the opportunity of 
opening a fashionable swimming school. He declined 
the offer, though he so greatly enjoyed this favorite 
exercise that on the voyage home, he one day leaped 
overboard and swam round the ship in the open ocean. 
Soon after arriving in Philadelphia to take a position 
with an English merchant, he became very sick and, 
as he lay near death, he wrote the following lines for 
his tombstone, because he thought they would be suit- 
able for the grave of a printer: 

The Body of 

B. Franklin, Printer, 

(Like the Cover of an old Book 

Its Contents torn out 

And stript of its Lettering & Gilding,) 

Lies here, Food for Worms. 

But the Work shall not be lost ; 

For it will, (as he believed) appear once more, 

In a new and more elegant Edition 

Revised and corrected 

By the Author. 

FINDING HIS FORTUNE 

But Franklin was only at the beginning of a long 
life of usefulness. As soon as he was well again, he 
found work at good wages with his former master, 
Keimer. Once more in the old shop, Franklin sus- 
pected that he was to be dismissed as soon as he had 
taught Keimer's green hands how to set type and work 
the printing presses. For this reason he lost no time 
in going into partnership with a fellow workman, 
whose father supplied the needed money. Later, with 

11 



a loan from two friends, he bought out his partner, 
purchased an unpopular newspaper and published it 
under the new name of the Pennsylvania Gazette. 

Franklin's neighbors watched his habits. He 
worked hard. He could be seen carrying material for 
his paper through the streets in a wheelbarrow. A 
member of the merchants' Every Night Club said 
one evening: "The industry of that Franklin is superior 
to anything I ever saw ; I see him still at work when I 
go home from the club at night, and he is at work again 
in the morning before his neighbors are out of bed." 
In this way Franklin gained "character and credit." 

He himself recalls how his father often read to him 
from the book of Proverbs : "Seest thou a man diligent 
in his business, he shall stand before kings ; he shall 
not stand before mean men." And he adds, "I did not 
think I should literally stand before kings ; which, 
however, has since happened, for I have stood before 
five, and even had the honor of sitting down with one, 
the King of Denmark, to dinner." 

At the age of twenty-four, Franklin married Deborah 
Read, who helped him to his great success. "We 
have an English proverb," he says, " 'He that would 
thrive, must ask his wife.' It was lucky for me that 
I had one as much disposed to industry and frugality 
as myself. She assisted me cheerfully in my business, 
folding and stitching pamphlets, tending shop, pur- 
chasing old linen rags for the paper makers. We kept 
no idle servants, our table was plain and simple, our 
furniture of the cheapest. For instance, my breakfast 
was a long time bread and milk — no tea — and I ate 
it out of a two penny earthen porringer with a pewter 
spoon. But mark how luxury will enter families, and 
make a progress, in spite of principle: Being called 
one morning to breakfast, I found it in a china bowl 

12 



with a spoon of silver ! They had been bought for me 
without my knowledge by my wife, for which she had 
no other excuse or apology to make but that she 
thought her husband deserved a silver spoon and 
china bowl, as well as any of his neighbors." 

It was not long before Franklin enlarged his business 
and opened a shop near the market place. He sold 
paper and sheepskin, legal blanks, imported books, 
quill pens and ink, Rhode Island cheese, scented soap, 
live geese feathers, tea, coffee, and lampblack, which 
he made himself. Industrious, saving, he made use 
of every chance and soon was the chief printer in 
Pennsylvania. Thrift brought wealth. At his death 
Franklin's estate was valued at $250,000. 

"POOR RICHARD" AND "FATHER ABRAHAM" 

In 1732 Franklin printed Poor Richard's Almanac. At 
that time most of the colonists were too poor to buy 
books. But cheap almanacs found their way into 
every household. Peddlers exchanged them for gloves 
and stockings, which the women knit by their lonely 
firesides during the long, cold evenings of winter. Be- 
cause people had so little to read, Franklin filled all the 
spaces in his almanac with homely proverbs intended 
to teach hard work, saving, honesty and self-reliance 
as a means to success. These proverbs Franklin put 
into the mouth of a character whom he called "Poor 
Richard." The best of them he collected and printed 
in his almanac of 1757. They were written in the form 
of an address by an old man to the people at an auction, 
and this was called Father Abraham's Speech. At that 
time country folk came early from long distances to 
these public sales. The auctioneer gave them all the 
rum they could drink, so that when the bidding began 

13 



they bought anything and everything at unheard of 
prices. For this reason, an auction was a good place 
to preach economy, temperance and honest work. 

The fame of Father Abraham's Speech spread every- 
where. Newspapers printed it again and again. It 
traveled to England. It crossed the English Channel 
to France. In time it reached every corner of Europe, 
and was translated into many different tongues. It 
is still read by the peoples of France, of sunny Italy 
and of modern Greece; by the blue eyed Germans of 
the North and the Spaniards and Portuguese of the 
South. It is today for sale in the book shops of Russia 
and Bohemia. You can buy it in Holland. It has 
even been translated into Gaelic, in order that the 
Irish may read it in their native language. Nothing 
else, written in the time of the colonies, is so famous 
and so widely read today. 

Here are some of "Poor Richard's" proverbs, taken 
from Father Abraham's Speech: 

"Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, 
wealthy and wise." 

"God helps them that help themselves." 

"Little strokes fell great oaks." 

"The rotten apple spoils his companion." 

"Never leave that till tomorrow, which you can do to- 
day." 

"A small leak will sink a great ship." 

"Silks and satins, scarlets and velvetis put out the kitchen 
fire." 

"When the well is dry they know the worth of water." 

"Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in 
no other." 

"He that goes a borrowing, goes a sorrozuing; and, in- 
deed, so does he that lends to such people, when he goes to 

14 



get it again. Rather to bed siipperless than rise in debt." 
"Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for 
that is the stuff life is made of." 

A copy of Poor Richard fell into the hands of John 
Paul Jones, the famous sea hero of the American 
Revolution, while he was waiting for his promised 
ship at the great harbor of Brest, in the northwest of 
France. Month after month passed. He wrote letter 
after letter to Paris, begging for his vessel. One day, 
almost beside himself, he chanced to pick up the 
almanac in a restaurant and read: "If you would have 
your business done, go; if not, send." He sprang to 
his feet, crying : "That was written for me !" and started 
immediately for Versailles, where King Louis XVI 
and his court then were. Delays were ended. At 
once he got his ship, and the very first thing he did 
was to paint out its name. Then, in gratitude to 
Franklin and in compliment to the French, on prow 
and stern he printed the words : "Bon Homme Richard" 
— "Goodman Richard." 

"THE FRIEND OF HUMAN KIND" 

Franklin and his friends had already formed a club 
for debate, the Junto. Later he suggested that the 
members keep their books in a common room. In 
some ways the plan did not work well, so he started 
a public subscription library. This was the beginning 
not only of the public library of Philadelphia, but of 
the present great public library system of America. 

Franklin, from now on, took deeper and deeper 
interest in public matters. When a reform was needed, 
he would first write an article on the subject and read 
it at his Club. If the members thought well of it, he 
would then print it in his newspaper, that had now 

15 



become popular. These articles would lead to othe 
articles and letters to the paper; these also were put 
lished, and in a few weeks, the proposed reforr 
would become such a public question that it woul 
be taken up by the government of the city or of th 
colony. 

Stirring up the interest of his fellow citizens in thi 
way, Franklin had regular watchmen hired to guar 
Philadelphia at night, and so prepared the way for on 
police system of today. Rousing their pride and intei 
est in the same way, Franklin had the streets c 
Philadelphia paved and better lighted, the pavement 
about the market swept, and the first militia organize( 
In this way, too, he started a Union Fire Company 
the first of its kind in the province. Before that timi 
at the cry of fire, every one in the city stopped worl 
men snatched their buckets and rushed along th 
streets. There was no one to command, no systei 
in putting out the fire. Every man did what fir; 
came into his head to do, and hopeless disordc 
followed. 

Franklin invented an open stove which he calle 
"The Pennsylvania Fireplace." It gave out moi 
heat and used less wood than the stoves then in us^ 
This was a great blessing to the colonists and tli 
beginning of the American stove industry of toda; 
Though a patent was oflfered to Franklin by the gove; 
nor, which would have given him alone the right t 
make and sell his stove, he refused to profit by h 
invention — "from a principle," he said, "which he 
ever weighed with me on such occasions, namely, — thj 
as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions ( 
others, we should be glad of an opportunity to ser\ 
others by any invention of ours ; and this we shoul 
do freely and generously." A London stove-make 

16 



not so high-minded, made some small changes in the 
stove, got a patent for it in England and made a small 
fortune. 

Franklin invented a copper-plate press, and printed 
the first paper money used in New Jersey. He in- 
vented, and his clever hands shaped, many original and 
useful things : A mangle for pressing linen ; a clock 
that showed the hours, minutes and seconds, on three 
revolving wheels ; a mechanical arm for taking books 
down from high shelves in his library. And he first 
made his own spectacles with double lenses, so ar- 
ranged that they could be used equally well for reading 
and for seeing at a distance. 

He made many experiments to learn the laws of 
heat, light and sound. By laying pieces of colored 
cloth on the snow, he discovered which colors are the 
best conductors of heat. He seemed forever working 
over some new scientific or mechanical problem. He 
was deeply interested in the new improvements in 
such different things as air pumps, guns and carriage 
wheels. As a result of his many experiments and 
studies, he wrote about fire and heat, light and sound, 
sun spots and shooting stars, the tides ; and about air, 
the wind and ventilation. 

Finding one day in a ditch a sprouting twig of wil- 
low, part of a broken basket, in which some foreign 
goods had been brought into the country, he planted it. 
From this tree all the yellow basket-willows in Amer- 
ica are said to have come. 

In 1750 he started an academy which grew to be 
Philadelphia College, and today has become the great 
University of Pennsylvania. Though Franklin's days 
were full of work, he learned by himself to read with 
ease French, Spanish and Italian. He found time, also, 
to play the harp, guitar and violin. 

17 



SEIZING THE LIGHTNING 

To be free from business, so that he could give 
himself to the study of electricity, Franklin sold his 
newspaper and printing house to his partner for 
eighteen thousand pounds — more than $90,000 of our 
money. This, paid in yearly sums, gave Franklin, at 
the age of forty-two an income large enough to live 
upon for the rest of his life. He now made endless 
experiments in electricity, of which men at that time 
knew almost nothing. And in June, 1752, he made the 
discovery that gave him world-wide fame. During 
a thunderstorm in Philadelphia, Franklin flew his 
famous silk kite, with its metal point and its wet string 
of hemp. From a key, tied to this string, he drew an 
electric spark and caught the electricity in a jar, which 
he had made for that purpose. In this way Franklin 
first proved that the power of the lightning could be 
captured, and that lightning and electricity are the 
same. And so, he made possible many great discover- 
ies and inventions by other men. Because of him, we 
have the telegraph and the telephone of today. And 
because of him, electricity has become man's useful 
servant. It runs his engines, turns his machinery, 
drives his street cars and automobiles, rings his bells, 
cooks his food, and heats and lights his home. And 
Franklin took the first step to guard man against the 
dangers of electricity, for he it was who invented the 
lightning rod. The Royal Society of London that first 
laughed at Franklin now did him honor; the Royal 
Academies of Paris and of Madrid elected him one of 
their members ; the colleges of Yale and Harvard gave 
him the degree of Master of Arts. And people in ad- 
miration began to call him "Doctor Franklin." 

18 



HIS FIRST WORK FOR UNION AND JUSTICE 

Suddenly he turned to politics, for "the public," he 
writes, "now considering me as a man of leisure, laid 
hold of me for their purposes." He was elected to 
the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1752, and made Post- 
master General of all the colonies. He completely 
changed the whole system of the post office and gave a 
postal service better than ever before known. 

About this time the French, the old enemies of the 
English, had begun pressing from Canada and from 
the valley of the Mississippi River upon the frontiers 
of the colonies. With Indians as their allies, they 
held the Ohio River, and built several forts on land 
that the English claimed. England then asked the 
colonists to unite for their common defense against 
this invasion of the French. 

When he printed in his paper the first news of the 
war, in the early spring of 1754, Franklin added a flag 
of his own design, showing a snake cut into pieces, each 
of which bore the name of one of the colonies. Under- 
neath were the words "Unite or Die." This was the 
first suggestion for a flag for the colonies. And he 
made a plan — ever since called the "Albany Plan of 
Union" — for the union of the colonies, the first pro- 
posal of the kind that was seriously discussed. But 
union was not yet to be. Both the colonies and Eng- 
land rejected the plan — the king said: "The Americans 
are trying to make a government of their own" — and 
the war with the French went on under the leadership 
of an English general with an English army. 

In 1757 Franklin was sent to England to urge 
upon Parliament Pennsylvania's need of being 
governed by laws of its own making as a royal 
colony, rather than by the wishes of the Penn family, 

19 



who owned the colony, but lived in England; knew 
nothing of the growth and needs of Pennsylvania, and 
were unwilling to pay their share of the taxes. Frank- 
lin represented the struggling farmers and colonists, 
and was bitterly opposed by the influence of the aristo- 
crats of England. He met with delay after delay, and 
it was nearly six years before he was able to return 
home. The Penn family for the future had to pay 
their share of the necessary taxes, but they un- 
fortunately remained the owners of the colony of 
Pennsylvania. 

During these years, living as a close friend of the 
greatest scientists and literary men of England and 
honored with degrees by the universities of Oxford 
and Edinburgh, Franklin learned to love the life of 
England, and would gladly have spent the rest of his 
years there as an active friend of the colonies, if he 
could have persuaded Mrs. Franklin to join him. But 
that good lady was afraid of the sea and would not go. 

There was strong affection between Franklin and 
his wife, and many loving letters crossed the Atlantic 
in the slow sailing ships of that day. From time to 
time she sent him boxes of home comforts. "The 
buckwheat and Indian meal," he writes her, "are come 
safe and good. They will be a great refreshment to 
me this winter." And in spite of his busy days, many 
remembrances and gifts went back to her by return- 
ing ships. "I sent my dear," he says in another letter, 
"a newest fashioned white hat and cloak and sundry 
little things. I now send her a pair of buckles, made 
of French paste stones, which are next in lustre to 
diamonds." 

In the election of 1764, the year after his return to 
America, Franklin's enemies made him lose his seat 
in the Assembly, but their plots did not prevent his 

20 



being immediately sent on a second mission to Eng- 
land. Again he carried an appeal to the English 
Parliament for the greater freedom of a royal govern- 
ment, such as the other colonies had, to take the place 
of the weak and unfair government of the Penns. 
With great hopes the people sent him forth. Three 
hundred citizens on horseback escorted him to the 
ship, and "filled the sails with their good wishes." The 
day the news came to Philadelphia of his safe arrival 
in England, the bells were kept ringing till midnight. 

FIGHTING FOR "THE RIGHTS OF 
ENGLISHMEN" 

Franklin expected to finish his business in England 
within ten months. Yet it was ten years before he 
returned. The English ministers would pay no at- 
tention to his petition, for now a greater trouble was 
starting with America. The freedom of a royal 
government that Pennsylvania wanted was already in 
the other colonies proving to be not freedom, but op- 
pression. And Benjamin Franklin was now to be not 
only the agent of Pennsylvania, but the friend of the 
whole American people protesting to the King and 
government of England against injustice. 

For many years the colonies had been growing in 
power and wealth. They had of their own will raised 
large sums by taxing themselves and, in spite of this, 
were prosperous. On the other hand, the people of 
England groaned beneath the taxes that the French and 
Indian war in America had laid upon them. Charles 
Townshend, a leader in Parliament, had the idea of 
keeping a standing army of twenty-five thousand men 
in the colonies and of taxing the colonists for its sup- 
port. To provide the money for this, the Stamp Act 

ai 



was passed without asking the consent of the Ameri- 
cans, who were to pay it. It was a law placing a tax 
stamp on nearly every kind of paper sold in the colon- 
ies. Franklin condemned the plan and did everything 
he could to prevent the passing of such a law, "but," 
he wrote to Philadelphia, "we might as well have 
hindered the sun's setting." 

With the proof of England's greatness and power 
all about him in London, Franklin never thought it 
possible that the colonies could successfully resist 
the Stamp Act. "Secession is impossible," he wrote 
to a friend, "for all American towns of importance, 
Boston, New York and Philadelphia are exposed to the 
British navy." 

When his fellow citizens heard that the law had been 
passed, and that he no longer opposed the tax, they 
were beside themselves with rage. Bells were tolled 
as if for the dead and flags were hung at half mast. 
Franklin was called a traitor. An insulting print was 
published showing the devil whispering to him: "Ben, 
thee shall be agent for all my dominions." His home 
was even threatened by the mob. Franklin's surprise 
and grief were deep. He had fought the battle for 
the colonists until the very last, and no one had greater 
daring and independence than he. He had even dared 
to say that if he could not be free to spend his money 
as he chose, and free to refuse to pay such an unjust 
tax, that he could still retire cheerfully with his little 
family "into the boundless woods of America, which 
are sure to afford freedom and subsistence to any man 
who can bait a hook or pull a trigger." 

Franklin, as always, understood the colonists' feeling 
and strongly supported them. He now had such in- 
fluence in England that no one could have replaced 
him. He was welcome everywhere ; he made powerful 

22 



friends rapidly and easily; he was admired by many of 
England's greatest men. No one else knew America 
so well. If English people sometimes said he was 
too American in what he said and did, everybody knew 
that he had a deep love for the mother country. 

The colonies soon made it plain that they would not 
be taxed at all by England. They talked angrily of 
the ancient "rights of Englishmen." They would fix 
and collect their own taxes, as their fathers had done. 
Every scrap of stamped paper that could be hunted 
up was burned. No one bought English taxed tea ; the 
women used dried raspberry leaves instead. People 
soon refused to buy anything that had come from 
England, and vessels bringing English goods were 
sent back unloaded. The colonists wore their old 
clothes and no longer followed the changes of English 
fashions. Americans would not eat lamb, so that 
there might be more wool, which even women of wealth 
learned to weave into homespun cloth. Franklin 
boasted that he had once been clothed from head to 
foot in woolen and linen of his wife's manufacture. 
He added that he had never been prouder of his dress 
in his life, and that his wife could go to her weaving 
again, if it were necessary. 

All this did good and not harm to the colonists in 
America. It made them self-denying and helped home 
manufacture. It was England that suffered. Her 
market in America was gone. A loud cry of distress 
went up from her factories and shops. 

The damage to England at last forced the English 
government to discuss the complaints of America. 
Pitt, the friend of Franklin and one of the first of 
English statesmen, made a famous speech. He said: 
"The Americans are the sons of England. They can- 
not be bound to pay taxes without their consent." For 

23 



six weeks traders, ship-captains, merchants, manu- 
facturers and others interested in American trade were 
called before the House of Commons to testify. With 
these went Franklin. Burke, the great English liberal 
and friend of America, said his examination was like 
that of a master by a crowd of schoolboys. Franklin 
answered all questions so cleverly, yet so simply and 
honestly that he greatly aided the repeal of the Stamp 
Act in 1766. Great, then, was the joy in Philadelphia. 
Ashamed of their treatment of Franklin, the citizens 
gave first place in a great parade to a forty-foot barge 
named "FRANKLIN," from which all the salutes 
were fired as it passed along. 

But there was still work for Franklin to do in Eng- 
land. New Jersey, Georgia and Massachusetts now 
made him their agent also. The Stamp Act had been 
repealed, but England would not give up her claim 
that she had the right to tax the colonies. "Every 
man in England," said Franklin, "seems to consider 
himself as a piece of a sovereign over America, seems 
to jostle himself into the throne with the King, and 
talks of 'mir subjects in the colonies.'" Earnestly and 
patiently he labored to prevent war, but the cause of 
the colonists was losing ground ; new enemies attacked 
and abused him ; and the king took away his office of 
Postmaster General in Pennsylvania. At last, patient 
as he was, he saw that all his efforts in England were 
hopeless. That he should give up, made it plain that 
war was at hand. On his last day in London, as he 
bent over his papers, his work was often interrupted 
by the tears running down his cheeks. 

REVOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE 

When Franklin landed in America the Revolution 
had already begun some two weeks before, in April, 

24 



1775; the battles of Lexington and Concord, famous 
in American history, had been fought. And a great 
change had come in his home. During his absence 
his wife had died, and his daughter had married 
Richard Bache, a man Franklin had never seen. 

Within a few weeks after his return, he wrote to a 
former friend in England this letter: 
"Mr. Strahan, — 

You are a Member of Parliament, and one of 
that Majority which has doomed my Country to 
Destruction. — You have begun to burn our Towns 
and Murder our people. — Look upon your Hands ; they 
are stained with the Blood of your Relations ! — You 
and I were long Friends; you are now my Enemy, — 
and I am 

Yours, 

B. Franklin." 

Franklin's seventy years now began to weigh 
heavily on him. His strength for a time seemed to 
fail, but the most important work of his life still lay 
before him. The abuse, heaped upon him in England, 
only deepened his popularity in America. To make 
up for the King's injustice, he was again appointed 
Postmaster General ; this time, by the colonies them- 
selves, at a salary equal to $5,000 a year. The day 
after he landed he was chosen delegate to the Con- 
tinental Congress, which had just been elected by the 
people of the colonies to deal with the new and serious 
questions before them. He was made member of all 
its important committees, and was one of the five men 
chosen to prepare the Declaration of Independence. 

In the darkest days and the worst trouble, Franklin, 
like Abraham Lincoln, never failed in wit and good 
humor. The most serious document he was very apt 
to begin and end with a joke. As he signed his name 

25 



with a flourish to the Declaration of Independence — 
one of the greatest papers in the world's history, that 
proclaimed the birth of the new republic, the United 
States of America — he said to the delegates who stood 
near him : "Yes, we must indeed all hang together, or 
we shall assuredly all hang separately." 

The war went slowly at first. But the Americans 
were resolved, and it was now "liberty or death." 
Soon Franklin wrote to his old friend, Dr. Priestly, in 
London, the great scientist who discovered oxygen and 
the composition of water: "Tell our dear old friend 
Dr. Price that Britain, at the expense of $3,000,000. 
has killed one hundred and fifty Yankees this campaign, 
which is $20,000 a head. During that same time sixty 
thousand children have been born in America. From 
these figures his mathematical head will easily cal- 
culate the time and expense necessary to kill us all, 
and conquer our whole territory." But it took six 
years of war to prove to England that she had neither 
enough men, money or time to destroy the liberties of 
the Americans. "They will never submit," Franklin 
had told Englishmen before he left London. 

And now Franklin was again sent abroad in the 
service of his country. He was chosen Envoy to France 
to ask help for his struggling countrymen. Sitting in 
Congress as the vote was taken, he whispered to a 
friend : "I am old and good for nothing but, as the 
storekeepers say of their remnants of cloth, I am but 
*a fag end' and you may have me for what you please." 

IN FRANCE SAVING THE REVOLUTION 

In a little sloop of war that had been a prize captured 
from the English, the grey-haired patriot took passage 
for France. Chased by English vessels, knowing well 

26 



that his neck was in peril, storm tossed, much of the 
food on board too hard for his old teeth, he reached 
Nantes tired and weak. Here he was received with 
open arms. After a week's rest he continued his 
journey and at last reached Paris. 

And Paris went wild over him. The greatest writers, 
philosophers and scientists of France — men of all 
classes welcomed him as no foreigner had ever been 
welcomed before. People crowded the street to see 
him pass. His portly figure, his heavy walking stick, 
his head without a wig such as French gentlemen 
wore, but covered by a heavy cap of marten fur ; his 
shrewd eyes twinkling through his great horn spec- 
tacles, his spotless linen, his simple brown suit of 
colonial make, all marked him as Franklin, the Ameri- 
can. People of fashion began to copy his dress. They 
hung his picture over their fireplaces. Soon no home 
was complete without a Franklin stove. 

At feasts he was toasted as "the American, the 
friend of human kind." People called him "Bon 
Homme Richard." His face on lockets and prints 
looked out of shop windows at the passer-by. If he 
made a joke everyone heard it. If he entered a public 
place there were shouts of applause. Poems were 
written in his honor. Women crowned him with 
wreaths of flowers, and one newspaper tried to prove 
that his ancestors had come from France. 

This welcome spoke well for the cause of America in 
France. It was in Franklin's nature to be hopeful. 
But besides this, it was his will to be hopeful, because 
he thought hopefulness wisest. His way of tempting 
good fortune was to welcome it, before it came. When 
he heard of the loss of an American ship at sea, he said : 
"The destroying of our ships by the English is only 
like the shaving of our beards, that will grow again. 

27 



Their loss of provinces is like the loss of a limb, 
which can never again be united to the body." 

Rumors of American defeat soon came to Paris by 
way of England, "Washington is in retreat. Howe 
has taken Philadelphia." These rumors he made jests 
of publicly, but they troubled him deeply. Franklin 
was no raw and untried diplomat. He had been fitted 
for his great task by fourteen years of the most diffi- 
cult negotiations in London. He knew how well he 
himself was liked in France. But he was not deceived 
by this. He knew why France was waiting before 
deciding to help the young Republic. She wished to 
know that the new states were strong enough to win 
some battles for themselves. She would help a revolu- 
tion, but not a rebellion. 

Suddenly, on the wind as it seemed, came rumors of 
America's success. One day the post coach of a special 
messenger from America dashed into the courtyard 
of the house at Passy, a suburb of Paris, where Frank- 
lin lived. At the sound of wheels all rushed out. 
"Sir," cried Franklin, "is Philadelphia taken?" "Yes, 
sir," answered the messenger. Franklin silently 
clasped his hands, and turned sadly to the house. 
"But, sir, I bear greater news. General Burgoyne and 
his whole English army are prisoners of war!" The 
clouds were gone. Soon all Paris had the news, and 
the French were almost mad with joy over the defeat 
of their old enemy, England. 

After the capture of Burgoyne, the English were 
willing to give the Americans everything that they 
had wanted, except their independence. But it was 
just ten days too late. Franklin had already signed 
a Treaty of Alliance with King Louis XVI of France. 
And within two months, in April of 1778, a French 
fleet under Admiral D'Estaing sailed for America. 

28 



Independence, and nothing but independence would 
now satisfy the Americans ; for a new nation, their 
own, had been born, to be forever free. 

When the American envoys were now at last pre- 
sented at the Court of King Louis, every one but 
Franklin was in court dress. In his suit of spotted 
Manchester velvet, no sword at his side, no buckles 
on his shoes, his thin grey hair straight and unpowder- 
ed, his wonderful eyes peering in good humor through 
his large spectacles, a round white hat under his arm, 
Franklin was, as always, simply himself, though in a 
crowd of gaily dressed gallants and painted dames. 
The story goes that both a court suit and a wig had 
been ordered ; that the suit did not arrive in time, and 
that the wig was found too small for Franklin's great 
head. When the French praised his simple American 
dress, he was too shrewd to tell why he had worn it. 

For two years in Paris heavy work was laid upon 
Franklin. It was he who gave advice, settled quarrels 
and carried on all the planning and business of the 
little fleet of privateers, the armed private ships flying 
the American flag, that made war from French seaports 
on the ships and commerce of England. He was the 
power behind John Paul Jones, the hero of the Ameri- 
can navy who kept the whole coast of England in 
terror. "His letters would make a coward brave," 
said Jones, himself the bravest of men, who like a 
wasp of war, now here, now there, captured prizes, 
fired ships within sight of the white cliflfs of England, 
spiked the guns of an English fort, and at last captured 
the English man-of-war "Serapis" while his own "Bon 
Homme Richard" was sinking. 

But the greatest of all the burdens upon Franklin, 
from the very time of his arrival, was finding money to 
pay the cost of the Revolution. The American envoys 

29 



in Spain and Holland sent him the bills they could not 
pay. He had to arrange for the support of the costly 
work of John Paul Jones and the fleet of American 
privateers. Congress sent him endless bills and drafts. 
Overwhelmed with the difficulty of finding enough 
money to meet these needs, he urged Congress to stop 
its demands. Congress promised, as he requested, and 
at once broke its promise. 

The United States had no credit for borrowing 
money. Faith in the honesty of this new people to 
pay its debts was the only security to the lender, 
when Congress issued its paper money at home and 
borrowed gold abroad. Franklin's work was really 
not borrowing; it was begging. Fortunately, the 
surrender of the English general, Burgoyne, had a 
cash value for the United States. It brought from 
France the loan of a large sum — nearly $15,000,000. 
in our money of today. And it led France to begin 
an expensive war with England. Yet France, for a 
nation, was poor. And so it was very unpleasant 
business for Franklin to be constantly begging for 
money from a good friend, who had but little to spare. 
It meant unending work and worry and difficulties. 
It meant little credit or gratitude at home. Before 
Franklin took up this hard task, he generously loaned 
Congress, for the cause of his country, all the money 
he could raise from his private means. This was an 
amount equal to nearly $20,000. 

For the help of the Revolution, Franklin, in his old 
age, preached hard work and economy, just as he had 
done in his youth as "Poor Richard." He learned that 
nearly $2,000,000 were spent each year in the United 
States for tea, and he suggested using that money for 
the expenses of war. He wrote to his friends at home : 
"A small increase of industry in every American, male 

30 



and female, with a small decrease of luxury, would pro- 
duce a sum far superior to all we can hope to beg or 
borrow from all our friends in Europe." 

PEACE AND FAREWELL TO FRANCE 

Franklin had been seventy-one years of age when he 
came to France. His health even then had begun to 
fail, and years of exhausting work had since passed. 
Serious illness now often kept him in bed for days 
at a time. Yet in bed and out of bed he was endlessly 
busy. His only complaint was : "When I was young 
and had the time to read, I had no books. Now, when I 
have become old, and have books, I have no time." 
Old age was steadily creeping on, and yet this marvel- 
ous old man, with little help, conducted the business 
of the United States in all its variety. Congress 
never gave Franklin even the help of a secretary, 
seldom gave him thanks and owed him money when he 
died. 

Worn with age and work and longing for home, 
Franklin in vain asked Congress to permit him to re- 
sign. In these days victory was coming to our Re- 
public in her great struggle for liberty. At last, in 
1781, Lord Cornwallis and his whole English army 
surrendered at Yorktown in Virginia and the war of 
the Revolution was ended. But two years were yet to 
pass before the treaty of peace was signed. Franklin, 
with the help of other American representatives, had 
an important part in fixing the terms of settlement 
with the envoys of England, France and Spain. Once 
this great treaty was signed, acknowledging the inde- 
pendence of the United States, for a second and a third 
time Franklin in vain sent his resignation to Congress. 

In these days, letters from all over Europe poured 

31 



in on Franklin, from people who wished to emigrate 
to America. Many of those who wrote him believed 
that high birth or a fine education would assure them 
a leading position in the United States. These he 
advised to stay at home. "In America," he wrote, 
"people do not inquire concerning a stranger: 'What is 
he?' but, 'What can he do?' America is the land of 
labor, and by no means a land where the streets are 
paved with loaves, the houses tiled with pancakes, and 
where the fowls fly about already roasted, crying: 
'Come eat me!' " 

Continuing at his post, he helped draw up treaties 
between the new republic and Sweden, Denmark, Por- 
tugal, Morocco, and Prussia. But when these were 
signed in 1785, Congress finally released him after his 
nine years' service and made Thomas Jefferson Minis- 
ter at Paris. When men asked : "You replace Dr. 
Franklin?" the great Jefferson replied: "I succeed him. 
No one can replace him." 

At last Franklin bade farewell to the France he so 
dearly loved. How it loved him was plainly shown 
when he left Europe for the last time, sailing for his 
native land. His friends in France begged him to 
remain with them. Devoted French homes eagerly 
opened their doors to him. To make his journey of 
one hundred miles to the sea coast a comfortable one, 
the King sent the Queen's litter to carry him to Le 
Havre. And as a parting royal gift Franklin took 
with him the King's portrait, framed in a double circle 
of four hundred and eight diamonds. At Portsmouth 
the British government, forgetting old scores, passed 
his baggage without duty. The voyage greatly helped 
his health. Old as he was, in his eightieth year, Frank- 
lin wrote three of his best essays during these seven 
weeks at sea. 

30 



SERVING AMERICA TO THE END 

On September 12, 1785, Franklin landed at Market 
Street Wharf, where more than sixty years before he 
had stood a penniless boy. Now great crowds cheered 
him and escorted him to his door, while bells rang and 
cannon boomed their welcome. 

Again he was claimed for the service of the State. 
He was made President of the Pennsylvania State 
Council. With good humor he accepted the honor, 
saying: "My country folks took the prime of my life. 
They have eaten my flesh, and seem resolved now to 
pick my bones." Great was the help he gave during 
hard days when the people were struggling to pay the 
heavy debt that the war had caused. He served a 
second and a third term. Like Washington, when 
commander-in-chief of the army, he gave his salary 
to public uses, and took not a penny for himself. 

In 1787 Benjamin Franklin was elected a member of 
the Convention that was to prepare a written consti- 
tution and a government for the new republic. He 
was chosen, men said, that there might be some one 
in the Convention, whom all could agree in making 
chairman in the possible absence of General Washing- 
ton. And so this aged man was regularly in his seat, 
working with all his old earnestness, five hours a day 
for four months. His good stories made him a wel- 
come speaker, and his wisdom was respected by all. 

Slowly and after long debate the Constitution of our 
government took its form. Franklin was always in 
favor of the most democratic ideas and of a very simple 
government, for he believed that the people could take 
care of themselves. He always trusted men. 
Through his suggestions the Convention finally agreed 
that the Constitution should give us our present 

33 



government of a Senate with two members for each 
State, and a House of Representatives with the num- 
ber of its members in proportion to the number of 
people hving in each State. He opposed limiting the 
right to vote to those who owned land; he thought 
that a foreigner could become a good American within 
four years, and he opposed those who insisted on 
fourteen years' residence as necessary for citizenship. 

When at last the Constitution was adopted, the aged 
Franklin rose in his place, and said that he had often 
asked himself during the debates, whether the sun 
painted behind the chair that was occupied by Wash- 
ington as president of the Convention, was a rising 
or a setting sun ; but that he knew now that it was 
rising. In the months that followed, his influence and 
his support were given to making George Washington 
the first President of the United States. 

By another year, Franklin was too ill to work fur- 
ther. But his good humor and courage were still 
unfailing. "I seem," he said, "to have intruded myself 
into the company of posterity, when I ought to have 
been abed and asleep." In one of his last letters is 
found the same good cheer: "People that will live a 
long life and drink to the bottom of the cup, must 
expect to meet with some of the dregs. However, 
when I consider how many more terrible maladies the 
human body is liable to, I think myself well off that 
I have only three incurable ones : the gout, the stone 
and old age." 

During the last year of his life, Franklin spent most 
of his time in bed. Suffering much, he still wrote a 
paper on the liberty of the press. He had always 
spoken strongly against negro slavery as a "crime." 
One of his last acts was to write Congress urging it to 
remove "this inconsistency from the character of the 

34 



American people ; to promote mercy and justice to- 
wards this distressed race ; and to step to the very 
verge of the power vested in you for discouraging 
every species of traffic in the persons of our fellow 
men." 

As the end came near, he asked to have his bed 
made up freshly, so that he might "die in a decent 
manner." Later his daughter suggested that he might 
breathe more easily, if he lay on his side. "A dying 
man can do nothing easily," he replied. On the night 
of April 17, 1790, the great Franklin died. 

A multitude of citizens in procession bore his body 
to Christ Church and laid him beside his wife. Con- 
gress wore a badge of mourning for a month. The 
newspapers printed their columns between heavy lines 
of black. France gave to his memory love and rever- 
ence. The National Assembly put on mourning and 
listened to addresses in his honor. A street in Passy 
where he had lived so long was given his name. 

THE FIRST GREAT AMERICAN 

Benjamin Franklin is the most remarkable man born 
of the old colonies. In many ways, he is the most 
remarkable of all Americans. Certainly he was, and 
he has often been called, "the first great American." 
Certainly, too, he was one of the very greatest men of 
his century. He is the only American who has three- 
fold fame as writer, scientist and statesman. He is 
the only American who signed all four of these great 
documents: The Declaration of Independence, that 
created the nation ; the Treaty of Alliance with France, 
that helped us win our liberties ; the Treaty of Peace 
with England, that acknowledged our independence; 
and the Constitution of the United States, that strongly 
established the nation. 

35 



During his long life he saw a few colonies, banded 
together, throw off the yoke of mighty England, and 
lay the foundations of our Republic, the United States 
of America. He saw the fiist great strides of the 
nation to the West, that in another century were to 
end in the settlement of a whole continent — a nation 
covering all the broad lands that stretch from the 
Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. And throughout this 
wonderful time of struggle and growth he played a 
master part. 

Shrewd and saving, hard-working, honest, self- 
reliant, "Poor Richard" taught the colonists his own 
virtues. Though he preached self-help, Franklin's 
whole life of eighty-four years was devoted to helping 
others. It was as "the friend of human kind" that he 
invented his stove, that he discovered a cure for smoky 
chimneys, that he planted basket willows, that he 
found a new fertilizer for farmers. It was for his 
"fellow men" that he improved the post office, that he 
established a paid night watch, that he paved and 
lighted the streets of Philadelphia. It was for them 
that he founded schools, libraries and hospitals. It 
was for them, too, that he took the lightning, a thing 
of terror and mystery, and made it a thing familiar, 
to be studied and used by men. 

As a writer, too, Franklin was great. For half a 
century he moulded public opinion by hundreds of 
essays and newspaper articles. His proverbs are still 
on every tongue. What he wrote was simple and 
interesting, and filled with good sense. Ever since it 
was first printed, people have liked to read, just as we 
do today, the story that he wrote of his own life. It 
is in this famous Autobiography that Franklin, talking 
to the reader as to a friend, tells how he made his way 
in the world, and overcame the difficulties that every 

36 



poor boy must meet, when he must make his fortune 
alone. We see him a lad studying even while he eats. 
We see him wandering about the strange streets of 
Philadelphia, seeking work. We see him a young 
printer, busy in his shop, setting the type — early in the 
morning before others were up — late at night, after 
others had gone to bed. We see him a successful man 
directing reforms in Philadelphia. It is a book that 
makes success seem easy. It makes the winning of 
character and the respect of others seem easy. It is 
one of the best and most helpful books in our lan- 
guage. But only by a chance was it saved to us. 
During the stormy days of the Revolution, the manu- 
script was actually thrown into the street in Phila- 
delphia, where it was found and rescued by an old 
friend of Franklin. 

Franklin had a heavy task as a statesman, and he 
made it a success. He was Washington's faithful and 
powerful friend. He helped greatly to make our 
government what it is today. In Paris he was envoy 
and minister; he acted as consul-general, navy de- 
partment, banker and merchant, all in one. Without 
him the Revolution could not have succeeded as it did. 
Washington did the fighting but Franklin obtained the 
means for fighting. And for his work, as well, the 
greatest courage and patriotic devotion were needed. 

Franklin was one of his own people, thoroughly an 
American. He was always simple and dignified. He 
never boasted about his country or himself, and he 
greatly disliked pride. Many times he told the story 
of a call he had made, as a boy, on Cotton Mather. 
As he left the house he hit his head against a beam. 
"Stoop," said Mather. "You are young and have the 
world before you. Stoop as you go through it, and 
you will miss many hard thumps." 



His warm and generous faith in men and women, 
like his good humor, he never lost. The first of demo- 
crats, before kings he was perfectly at his ease ; only 
his odd dress, no word or act of his, made him seem 
out of place in the most brilliant court scene. He was 
like many another American, who, starting life poor 
and without friends, has reached success through the 
power and the resolution that were within him. But 
few have lived on like Franklin in the minds and 
hearts of a people. Throughout America today his 
keen-eyed, clever face under his great fur cap is widely 
known and widely loved. Even his name, often given 
to towns, streets, societies and to business, by its very 
sound seems to suggest to us the high character and 
the friendly spirit of the man. 

If Life's compared to a Feast, 

Near Fourscore Years I've been a Guest; 

I've been regaled with the best, 

And feel quite satisfyd. 
'Tis time that I retire to Rest; 

Landlord, I thank ye ! — Friends, Good Night. 

Written by Benjamin Franklin April 22, 1784. 



38 





FROM A POKTRAII MADE IN 1772 



GEORGE WASHINGTON 

THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY 

"God left him childless that he might be the father of his 
country." 

LIFE IN "OLD VIRGINIA" 

In 1732, when Benjamin Franklin first began to 
teach the colonists the wisdom of "Poor Richard," 
George Washington was born in the English colony 
of Virginia. Franklin was twenty-six years the older, 
a man of the town and the North. Washington was 
of the country and the South. Great was the dififer- 
ence between North and South. Unlike busy New 
England, "Old Virginia" had no cities, no industries. 
The only towns — and they were very small — were 
Norfolk, on the sea, and Williamsburg, the capital. 
Except on court and church days, the sleepy county 
seats, needed for court house, prison and church, were 
usually as quiet as the silent woods about them. Vir- 
ginia was a land of plantations. The countless rivers, 
streams and inlets that cross it in the east, and through 
which the slow ocean tides from Chesapeake Bay ebb 
and flow, made roads almost unnecessary, for nearly 
every plantation could be reached by boat. 

The plantation was a little world by itself. In the 
center of a group of buildings that seemed a village, 
was the great, square, white house of the planter, 
with its wide verandahs and large brick chimneys. 
About it were lofty pines and oaks shading a velvety 

39 



lawn — nearby, a garden fragrant with roses, jasmine 
and other southern flowers. At one side stood the 
low white cabins of the negroes, each with its tiny 
melon patch. In great, rough, open sheds tobacco 
hung drying from long poles. 

Once a year a ship came to the planter's wharf and 
brought him, directly from his agent in England, 
clothes, linen, furniture, pictures, books, wine, medi- 
cine — everything he needed which was not made on 
his own plantation. He reloaded the ship with to- 
bacco, which was the money of Virginia. With 
tobacco he paid all bills, wages, court fines, even 
minister's fees. The dark green, waving masses of 
its broad, curving leaves spread in unending fields 
over the rolling country. Tobacco was the wealth of 
the land. 

The first settlers in Virginia had found the Indians 
smoking the dried leaves of a strange plant, that they 
themselves soon called "tobacco," from the Indian 
name of the pipe in which it was smoked. The white 
men tried it and liked it, and then sent bundles of it 
to England. Englishmen quickly learned the habit of 
smoking, and soon the world's demand for tobacco 
grew faster than Virginia could supply it. By 1612 
the settlers planted it as a regular crop. By 1616 they 
were giving nearly all their time to it, for tobacco was 
easily grown in the fertile soil, and sold for good 
prices. Before long, hundreds of immigrants, eager 
to make their fortunes, crowded across the Atlantic 
Ocean in the small sailing vessels of that day. Ship- 
loads of girls were sent from England to be wives to 
these early settlers. They were free to choose their 
husbands, but no man could claim his bride until he 
had paid one hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco 
for her passage. 

40 



A living tide from the old world was soon pouring 
into the new, but still Virginia could not raise enough 
tobacco for the English market. Her laborers were 
too few. In 1619 it happened that a Dutch man-of- 
war brought twenty negroes from Africa and sold 
them in Virginia for slaves. The planters found this 
service for life without pay a great saving. The ne- 
groes were often lazy, but they were good natured, 
and intelligent labor was not needed for hoeing to- 
bacco. More negroes were bought. In this way 
began the horrors of the slave trade and our country's 
long curse of slavery. 

When Washington was born, more than a hundred 
years had passed since the first permanent settlement 
of Virginia. The colony had a half million people 
living their picturesque plantation life — at last without 
fear of the Indians — nearly all of them in comfort and 
some of them in wealth. The planters were simple, 
care-free country gentlemen, keen sportsmen, daring 
hunters and on very good terms with themselves and 
with the world. They were mostly idle and pleasure- 
loving, for they found life easy and generous. Yet, 
when the time of need came, Virginia gave many of 
our greatest soldiers, lawyers and statesmen to the 
service of the nation. She has been called the "Mother 
of Presidents," because eight of our twenty-eight presi- 
dents were born within her borders. Such was the 
life of "Old Virginia" to which George Washington 
was born. 

WASHINGTON'S BOYHOOD 

It was in 1656 that George Washington's great 
grandfather, John Washington, emigrated from Eng- 
land, seeking in the new world a better living and 
a better fortune. Hard-working and thrifty, he took 

41 



up rich lands in Virginia ; his plantation grew, and he 
became colonel in the militia. In the House of Bur- 
gesses — the lower house of the Virginia legislature — 
he won such honor that the parish he lived in was 
given the name of Washington even before his death. 
His grandson Augustine, ship's captain, planter, mine 
owner — member, too, of the House of Burgesses — was 
a man of character and high intelligence. He married 
Mary Ball, a beautiful Virginian. They lived at 
Bridge's Creek in the old Washington homestead, 
whose fertile fields sloped down to the Potomac River, 
which flooded slow and wide to the great bay beyond. 
To them George Washington was born — fifth child 
and fourth son — at ten o'clock on the morning of 
February 23, 1733. 

Washington's father died when he was twelve years 
old. Two of his older brothers, like other Virginia 
boys of good family, had their schooling in England, 
but George could not hope for this. Mary Washing- 
ton, his young mother, had much land indeed — her 
husband had left five thousand acres when he died — 
but she had five small children to educate, and little 
ready money with which to do it. Fortunately, she 
was not only a loving mother, but a woman of strong 
will and remarkable business ability. After Mr. 
Washington's death she directed the work on her 
large plantation. 

Reading, writing and arithmetic Washington 
learned in a small school kept by the sexton of the 
parish church. His mother early took an active part 
in his education. It was to her, people said after- 
ward, that Washington owed his power to govern 
and his love of order. In the respectful manner of 
the time, the boy always addressed her in his letters 
as "Honored Madam" and signed himself, "Your 

42 



dutiful son." One of his companions gives a picture 
of the awe she inspired by saying: "We were all as 
mute as mice when in her presence." 

It was natural that a boy, who was to be a great 
general, should play soldiers in a practical way. 
Hearing all about him stirring tales of arms from 
abroad and from the frontier, he loved to fight mock 
battles with his playmates, who took the part of the 
French and the savage Indians. He was the "gen- 
eral" of a small company of boy soldiers, which he 
sternly drilled and led forth with pride, always to 
victory, never to defeat. And he soon proved himself 
a born leader among the boys in the rough sports of 
Virginia, just as he did later among men in the heroic 
days of the Revolution. 

George Washington, it had been decided, was to be 
a Virginia planter like his father. In Virginia the 
sons of planters were taught how to draw up bills, 
receipts, and even leases and deeds, because there were 
few lawyers in the colony, and a planter often had to 
do such work himself. This, therefore, became an 
important part of Washington's education. Several 
of his books, filled with many kinds of accounts and 
business forms, all copied in his round, bold hand, still 
exist. In one of these books, he wrote out a list of a 
hundred and ten rules of conduct, that chiefly taught 
self-control. His copying these rules shows how re- 
markably sober and thoughtful he was even as a boy 
of fourteen. Self-control he learned early, and this 
was the secret of his power to control other men. 

Even in his childhood Washington spent much time 
at Mount Vernon, the home of his oldest brother 
Lawrence, who in the army and navy had gallantly 
served the King of England in Spain and in the West 
Indies. Near Mount Vernon was the richly furnished 

43 



home of William Fairfax, Belvoir, where the best and 
most cultured society of the colony constantly met. 
Mt. Vernon shared in all the gayeties of Belvoir. 
There were often visitors from over-sea, especially 
officers of British men-of-war anchored in the Poto- 
mac. And so it was in the company of these British 
soldiers — talking now of war with the French and 
Indians — and in the company of the gallants and fair 
ladies of Virginia that George Washington was bred. 
He breathed an air filled with romance, war and ad- 
venture. 

And romance came first. For here this lad of fifteen 
suddenly gave his heart into the keeping of a "Vir- 
ginia belle," his "Lowland Beauty," as he always 
afterward called her. The lady cared little for her 
youthful lover, and Washington wrote a long poem 
on her cruelty. There is a story that the "Lowland 
Beauty" became the wife of Washington's dear friend, 
Richard Henry Lee; the mother of the beloved "Light 
Horse Harry," who served under Washington in the 
Revolution ; and the grandmother of Gen. Robert E. 
Lee, the great Confederate leader in the Civil War. 

It was soon after this, that Admiral Vernon cap- 
tured Porto Bello. Fired with the tale, Washington 
longed to throw aside his books for the King's service. 
He was barely fifteen — too young for the army, but 
not for the navy — and through his brother's help 
he quickly had an appointment as midshipman. They 
say that the young middy was in uniform, ready to 
go on a man-of-war lying in the Potomac, when 
Madame Washington refused her consent. Her 
brother had written from England, that there was 
small chance in the English navy for a lad without 
money or influence ; and as for going to sea as a 
sailor, the boy had better become a tinker's appren- 

44 



tice — so difficult was it for a man ever to become as 
great a thing as the master of a Virginia ship ! 

Disappointed, but obedient, Washington returned to 
school. Five years and more must pass before he 
could take possession of the estate left him by his 
father. Till then he must earn money. Surveying 
land was the only work, at that time, open in Virginia 
to a young gentleman of his age and position. So he 
studied geometry and trigonometry, surveyed the fields 
about the school house, and made notes with the neat- 
ness and perfection that, throughout his life, marked 
everything he did. In after years his knowledge of 
surveying was of the greatest use to him in countless 
ways: In his work as a planter; in planning as army 
officer and general, marches and camps and forts; and 
in selecting a site for our national capital, that was 
later to be named Washington in his honor. Reading 
too, was an important part of his education. Unlike 
Franklin who had to work hard for money to buy a 
few books, he had the best books constantly at hand 
in his own home and in the library of Mount Vernon. 

Barely sixteen, Washington went to live at Mount 
Vernon. Recognizing the high spirit and honor of 
the fine lad, Lawrence Washington gave himself to 
his young brother's development with the same love 
and tenderness that he would have shown a son of 
his own. Indeed, his will provided that if his only 
daughter should die, George should be his heir. 

LORD FAIRFAX AND THE FRONTIER 

Within another year George Washington began to 
seem a man grown. He took a more active part in the 
social life of Mount Vernon and Belvoir, In the 
saddle, in the open air life of sport and daring, on the 
trail of the fox, bear and wild cat, wherever strength 

45 



and courage were the test, he was the comrade and 
equal of the men who were his brother's guests. One 
of these, Lord Fairfax, had an important influence on 
his life and on the shaping of his character. 

This nobleman and scholar, jilted by an English 
beauty, had turned his back upon the world of fashion, 
and crossed the ocean to cultivate his vast estates in 
Virginia. Though nearly sixty, he was a man full of 
life and vigor. From the first he loved Washington for 
his nobility of character and strength of will. To- 
gether they rode and hunted in the tangled forests of 
Virginia, the lad gaining from the man a knowledge 
of the great world that no books could give him ; 
gaining, too, something of old world culture and ad- 
dress. And just as Washington's courtly manner to 
high and low alike, came largely from his friendship 
with this fine gentleman, so his clear, simple English 
he owed mostly to this friend of Addison and Steele, 
who also wrote for the Spectator, the very paper over 
which Franklin had worked so hard, when he wished 
to learn how to write clearly and well. 

Lord Fairfax planned to build a mansion on the 
great estate that he had inherited from his grand- 
father, but he wished first to know just where his 
lands lay, and how far they extended. In his young 
friend he found a surveyor he could trust with this 
important task. 

George Washington, not yet seventeen, was tall and 
slender but well knit. His arms were very long, his 
wrists and hands extremely large; his muscles wiry 
from hard exercise. Light brown hair fell back from 
a manly face, where strong passions were marked in 
the broad nose, the large blue eyes, and the great 
width of forehead between them. His jaw was strong 
and square, his expression "happy and serene." The 

46 



power of the man had begun to look forth from the 
eyes of the boy. 

With a few helpers Washington rode in March, 
1748, through the forests and over the mountains to 
his first important work in the world. No more than 
a school boy, he was plunged at once into rough fron- 
tier life. Working through tangled woods, swimming 
icy streams swollen with melting snow, suffering from 
cold, often wet and hungry, watching the mad dances 
of drunken Indians around their camp fire at night, 
sleeping now in some tent or comfortless cabin, now 
under the brilliant stars, he wrote his diary and made 
his maps and surveys for Lord Fairfax. 

With a dash he entered into this man's work, and 
its hardships, and pushed it through to its finish. He 
wrote to a boy friend : "I have not sleep'd above three 
nights or four in a bed, but, after walking a good deal 
all the day, I lay down before the fire upon a little 
hay, straw, fodder or bear-skin, whatever is to be had, 
with man, wife and children, like a parcel of dogs and 
cats ; and happy is he who gets the berth nearest the 
fire. A doubloon" — a doubloon was worth about $5.00 
— "is my constant gain every day that the weather 
will permit of my going out, and sometimes six pis- 
toles ;" — a pistole was worth one-quarter of a doub- 
loon — "I have never had my clothes off, but have lain 
and slept in them, except the few nights I have been 
in Frederick Town." 

W^ithin a month he was back again at Belvoir, the 
work done and well done. He laid before Lord Fair- 
fax maps and figures that gave him a clear knowledge 
of his estates. 

Through the help of Lord Fairfax, Washington was 
now made public surveyor of Culpepper County, where 
his careful surveys became a part of the public records, 

47 



and are still in use today. In the new country 
of Virginia there was a great demand for able sur- 
veyors and Washington soon had all the work he 
could do. For a good three years he led this rough 
life, growing more fearless of danger and better able 
to stand fatigue and exposure, gaining new knowl- 
edge of woodcraft and of the Indians. Silent and 
straight as an arrow, he came to look like an Indian 
himself, people said, and he moved through the woods 
with an Indian's peculiar step. 

Tramping and riding over the border lands of Vir- 
ginia, the young surveyor was soon widely known 
and greatly liked by the settlers. At Lord Fairfax's 
new home of Greenway Court, he enjoyed the sport, 
the gaiety and the fine library. Mt. Vernon remained 
his home. There he studied the elements of the art 
of war, and was trained in the use of the broadsword 
by two good friends, Major Muse, and Jacob van 
Braam, an old Dutch soldier of fortune. And he often 
found time to visit his mother and help her in the 
management of her estate. 

MAJOR WASHINGTON AT TWENTY 

But within three years, this life with all its good 
training was sharply cut off. Lawrence, the elder 
brother, never strong, had fallen ill of consumption. 
Hoping to find a cure in the balmy air of the West 
Indies, he went to the Bahama Islands, and George 
went with him as nurse and loved companion. Alert 
and observant, our young surveyor made notes in his 
diary of the scenery, the government, the customs and 
people of the islands. 

On their return Lawrence died and a great change 
came over Washington's life. His boyhood was gone 

48 



forever. He at once faced larger duties and responsi- 
bilities. Before leaving for the Bahamas, Lawrence 
had obtained for his nineteen year old brother his own 
commission as Major and District Adjutant of the 
militia. On their return, Gov. Dinwiddie reduced 
the military districts of the colony of Virginia to four, 
and assigned one of them to Washington under the 
title of Major and Adjutant General. So at the age 
of twenty Washington had charge of the militia of 
eleven counties. He was, besides, executor of his 
brother's large estate and the guardian of his daughter. 

And now came his first chance of service to the 
state, leading to a great career in arms. For years 
there had been growing rivalry between France and 
England for the possession of America. The frontiers 
had seen bloodshed. The French in their fort at 
Niagara boldly held the way to the Great Lakes. 

By births and immigration the country was rapidly 
growing. Hundreds of settlers were now pushing 
westward from the English frontiers in Pennsylvania 
and Virginia. New English trading posts and settle- 
ments were springing up in the beautiful Ohio Valley. 
English settlers along the Ohio River meant English 
control of that great water way to the Mississippi 
River and to the Gulf of Mexico. The French decided 
that it was time for them to act, and the able French 
general, Marquis Duquesne, promptly built a fort on 
Lake Erie, near a branch of the Ohio. Gov. Dinwiddie 
of Virginia, like the governors of the other colonies, felt 
sure Duquesne would not stop at that. News of the 
danger was hurried to England. There could be but 
one answer: "If the French will not go, drive them 
away by force of arms." 

Gov. Dinwiddie was quick to write a letter to the 
commander of Duquesne's new fort to ask by what 

49 



right the French were building forts, and doing other 
acts of war on lands that belonged to the King of 
England. He chose Washington for his messenger, 
because the young major of twenty-two had already 
proved his courage, and knew the wilderness as well 
as any Indian. 

On the last day of October in that year of 1754, 
Washington set out with his fencing master Jacob van 
Braam, as interpreter; with Christopher Gist, a hardy 
frontiersman as guide ; and with a little company of 
trusted men. The journey was a hard and dangerous 
one, but after six weeks in the forest, the band of 
eight rode their jaded horses up to the rough-built 
little French fort and delivered the governor's letter. 
While St. Pierre, the French commander, was writing 
his polite answer which gave no promise that the 
French would leave the Ohio Valley, Washington 
shrewdly sketched the fort and studied its condition 
and surroundings. 

In the dead of winter the journey home began. 
Leaving his weakened horses behind to follow with 
the baggage, Washington alone with Gist, pushed 
ahead on foot. At two in the morning they often 
began their day's march, guided by the north star. 
Just escaping murder at the hands of some French 
Indians ; falling from a raft into a river's floating 
ice, then fighting his way to an island and sleeping 
with his clothes frozen stiff upon him ; struggling on 
in spite of aching feet and great weariness, he reached 
Williamsburg by the middle of January. 

Washington was at once a hero. From that moment 
his fortune was made, for he had proved his ability. 
His story of the journey gave a clear account of what 
he had seen and heard, and of the plans of the French. 
Gov. Dinwiddle had it printed and sent a copy of it 

50 



to London and to the governor of every colony. 
Clearly war was at hand. 

THE FIRST SHOT IN THE FRENCH 
AND INDIAN WAR 

On this journey in his twenty-third year, Major 
Washington had selected the forks of the Ohio as 
a commanding place for an English fort. Immediately, 
in spite of the snow and ice of winter, a party of 
frontiersmen, under Capt. Trent, was hurried out to 
build it. 

Washington, young as he was, was oflfered the 
command of three hundred and fifty men to follow 
Trent. He refused it, writing that he loved his coun- 
try too much to put upon it the risk of using so untried 
a leader as himself for so important an undertaking. 
Colonel Fry was then given the chief command, and 
Washington was made his assistant, with the rank 
of lieutenant colonel. Early in April, at the head of 
an advance force of one hundred and fifty men, he left 
to join Trent and help him finish his fort. Bad news 
met them on the way. Trent himself appeared, and 
he was in retreat. The French had at once destroyed 
the work of the English, and in the same place had 
laid the foundations of Ft. Duquesne. 

This was war. Sending a call for troops to Virginia, 
Maryland and Pennsylvania, Washington immediately 
took up the march against the enemy. But he soon 
learned that the French were now fourteen hundred 
strong, and that Ft. Duquesne was nearly finished. 
Knowing the folly of attack, he camped his handful 
of men at Great Meadows, just across the mountains 
from his enemy. 

Waiting there for help, his watchful outposts 

51 



brought the news that a French scouting party was 
near. Washington with forty men at once plunged 
into the dark, wet forest to find and capture them. 
At last they came upon the enemy hidden in a clump 
bf dripping trees. A quick volley, a dash with 
bayonets and the fight was won. A single man 
escaped to carry the news to the French. So began a 
great war. It was Washington's first battle and the 
danger-loving soldier spoke in his letter to his brother: 
"I heard the bullets whistle and, believe me, there is 
something charming in the sound." 

Back at his camp at Great Meadows, Washington's 
position quickly became desperate. His men, count- 
ing those who had just come to help him, numbered 
only three hundred and fifty. Col. Fry had died on 
the way, leaving him alone in command. Hastily 
with his men he dug rough trenches, and these he 
well named Ft. Necessity. A thousand French and 
Indians were now hurrying down from the North to 
avenge the death of their scouts. 

The enemy — French soldiers, trappers and painted 
Indians — were soon seen at the edge of the forest. 
For nine hours through rain, and a heavy mist that 
almost blinded the eyes, the fight went on. More 
than fifty men lay dead and wounded on the wet 
ground. The worn-out troops stood in water-filled 
trenches. Their earth works were sticky mud, their 
guns wet and useless, their powder and bullets gone. 
They were almost without food, and could hope for 
no further help. Worst of all, the French were four 
to their one. By the light of a candle, blowing wildly 
in wind and rain, Jacob van Braam translated to the 
drenched English officers the terms the French ofifered. 
The English would be allowed to leave with their 
arms, if they promised not to return to the Ohio with- 

52 



in a year. Washington accepted these conditions. 

Then began the long dreary journey back without 
horses or wagons — the young commander, heavy 
hearted, yet brave and cheery for the sake of his 
miserable men — the men, bending beneath their load 
of wounded comrades, and what was left of their bag- 
gage, dragged themselves wearily over the long rough 
miles home. 

This first defeat was a bitter blow to the pride and 
ambition of the ardent young soldier. Yet no man 
could have done more, and Virginia was proud of him. 
She gave thanks to him and to his officers, and she 
gave money to his men. This campaign was the 
beginning of that hard drill in war, which was to re- 
sult in Washington's trained ability and wonderful 
mastery of himself and men. Twenty-one years to a 
day after the defeat at Ft. Necessity, he drew his 
sword as Commander-in-Chief of the American army. 

The hot-headed Scotch governor, Dinwiddie, was for 
sending at once a new force to punish the French, 
and ordered Washington to lead it. But the honor, 
the clear judgement and good sense of the young 
colonel opposed this mad plan. Gov. Dinwiddie then 
decided to enlarge the little army to ten companies 
of one hundred men, each under an independent cap- 
tain. This was so impossible and so foolish a pro- 
posal that Washington resigned from the army and 
returned to Mt. Vernon. 

COLONEL WASHINGTON AND BRADDOCK'S 
DEFEAT 

But Washington had lit the flame of a great war 
the day he fired that first volley near Ft. Necessity. 
To drive all the French from the English lands, Gen. 

53 



Braddock, as commander-in-chief, was now sent with 
two regiments across the ocean from England. He 
was brave but brutal, a veteran soldier, yet ignorant 
of Indian warfare, and too proud and sure of success 
to learn, or to listen to any advice. No one could have 
been more unfit for his task. 

It gave Washington keen pleasure to watch the 
splendidly drilled English soldiers, fully supplied 
with everything an army needs. He had never seen 
war made ready on so grand a scale. Braddock 
oflFered him a position on his own staff and Washington 
joyfully accepted. At the beginning of the French 
and Indian war, the staff of an English general of the 
regular army treated most colonial officers with indif- 
ference or contempt, but these English officers saw 
something that commanded their respect in the able 
young Virginian, soldierly and tall, who bore himself 
so proudly among them. 

Delay after delay roused Braddock's hot temper. 
At last, nearly the middle of June, the advance against 
the French began. After nine days' slow crawling, 
burdened with heavy baggage, Washington persuaded 
Braddock to send twelve hundred men ahead, leaving 
the rest to follow. And he begged him to send scouts 
far in advance to prevent a surprise by the Indians, 
but Braddock angrily refused. 

On the ninth day of July, by the river bank a few 
miles from Fort Duquesne, this gallant band of soldiers 
marched to its fate. Braddock himself, gorgeous in 
red and gold lace, led them, their brilliant uniforms 
and arms flashing in the sunlight against the sombre 
green background of the forest. Suddenly a French 
officer appeared in an opening, running towards them. 
Behind him, shadowy forms half hid in the dense 
forest, leaped right and left, and sheltered by trees 

54 



poured a deadly fire into the English ranks. Bravely 
enough the British soldiers, shouting "God Save the 
King," gave back volley after volley. But their 
bravery was in vain. The foe was hidden, while their 
own bright coats were only targets for Indian bullets. 
Washington urged Braddock to order his men into the 
forest to light like the Indians, but he would not, 
and when the soldiers to protect themselves sprang 
behind trees, he swore angrily at the "cowards," as 
he called them, and struck them with his sword. 

"Washington's Virginians alone, fought in true 
Indian fashion. With help they might have saved the 
day. Hardly able to sit his horse for weakness 
from a fever, Washington lost himself in the fury of 
the fight. Fearing no danger, urging the men on to 
courage and victory, he galloped into the very thick of 
the firing. His life seemed charmed. Two horses 
were shot under him. Four bullets cut his coat. Still 
he was without a wound and the Indians murmured 
in awe : "It is useless. He is protected by the Great 
Spirit." 

Forced to retreat at last, Braddock was hit by a 
fatal shot. His soldiers wild with fear, amid a hail 
of pursuing bullets, fled like madmen into the dark 
night, passing even their own camp and tearing on 
towards the settlements. More than seven hundred 
were killed and Washington alone saved the rest from 
entire destruction. Braddock died with praises on his 
lips for the gallant Virginia "blues," and regrets for his 
hot refusal of all advice. To Washington he gave his 
favorite horse and his devoted servant Bishop, who 
had carried him dying from the field. They buried 
Braddock near Ft. Necessity in the rough roadway, so 
that any trace of his grave might be hid from the 
savage foe by the tracks of the heavy army wagons 

55 



that passed over it. Eighty-five years later a memento 
of that terrible day was found on the old battlefield. 
It was Washington's seal with his initials. 

Fearing that Indian raids would follow close on the 
French success at Ft. Duquesne, Virginia increased her 
forces and made Washington commander-in-chief. 
Always short of money from the miserly Burgesses, 
his provisions were scanty, his men without shoes, 
shirts and stockings. They were not eager for work 
or training, but very eager for their pay. Special 
laws had to be made to force them to obey their 
officers. Disobedience turned to mutiny in many cases, 
and then Washington became a stern master, promptly 
hanging the mutineers. Everything seemed to be 
against him. And yet he did not shrink from the 
almost hopeless task of protecting three hundred and 
fifty miles of frontier from the murderous dashes of 
Indian bands, that often in the dead of night stole, 
torch in hand, through swamp and forest to their 
terrible work. 

Settlers, crazed with fear, fled to Washington for 
help. At times even he lost heart. "The supplicating 
tears of the women," wrote the young commander-in- 
chief, "melt me into such deadly sorrow, that I 
solemnly declare, if I know my own mind, I could offer 
myself a willing sacrifice to the butchering enemy, 
provided that would contribute to the people's 
ease. I would be a willing offering to savage fury 
and die by inches to save the people." 

PEACE AND MOUNT VERNON 

The great William Pitt now became prime minister 
of England, and he at once put the war in America 
into the hands of able men. Dinwiddle was recalled, 
a new attack on Ft. Duquesne was planned, and at last 

56 



Washington's advice was followed. The lesson had 
been learned. Each officer and soldier in Indian dress, 
and "light as any Indian in the woods," the troops 
entered the fateful forest, where Braddock's men had 
been butchered. They found nothing to do but hoist 
the English Union Jack over the smoking walls of Ft. 
Duquesne ; for the French, fearing they would be cut 
off by the English in the North, had abandoned and 
burned their fortress. There was now no need of an 
army in the Ohio Valley. A new fortress arose on the 
ruins of Fort Duquesne — on the very spot which 
Washington himself had first selected. In honor of 
the famous prime minister, it was named Fort Pitt. 
There today stands the city of Pittsburgh. 

News from Canada, in 1759, of the capture of Que- 
bec, told that the French power in America was at 
an end. With the coming of peace, Washington left 
the army to lead the life of a Virginia gentleman at 
Mt. Vernon, which had become his own through the 
death of his niece. He was soon elected a member 
of the House of Burgesses. At his first appearance 
in the house. Speaker Robinson rose to thank him for 
his services, now on the lips of every Virginian. 
Blushing and confused, Washington stood, unable to 
utter a word. "Sit down, Mr. Washington," said the 
Speaker, "your modesty is equal to your valor, and 
that surpasses the power of any language that I pos- 
sess." During the years that followed, and until the 
coming of the Revolution, Washington served Virginia 
as a Burgess. 

Meanwhile, on a day in May, in 1758, as he rode on 
orders to Williamsburg, with the faithful Bishop at 
his side, Washington had been met by a friend and 
asked to his home to dine, and — for this was part 
of the invitation — to meet a beautiful young widow, 

57 



his guest. Since the affair of the "Lowland Beauty," 
the young soldier's heart, so history says, had beaten 
the quicker for the charms of another Virginia maiden 
and of a New York belle, but now it made its final 
surrender. Dinner was over, Bishop and the restless 
horses at the door. The shadows lengthened, and still 
Washington tarried, forgetful of everything but the 
charms of sweet Martha Custis. Twilight came, and 
the horses were sent back to the stable. It was well 
on in the morning of the next day before Washington 
bowed low in farewell over the lovely widow's hand, 
and spurred his horse on to Williamsburg. His duty 
there done, he returned and sought her at once — this 
time at her own home. When again he left her, he 
carried with him to the frontier the promise of her 
love. This is part of a letter he wrote her, while on 
the march for the Ohio: "A courier is starting for 
Williamsburg, and I embrace the opportunity to send 
a few words to one whose life is now inseparable from 
mine. Since that happy hour when we made our 
pledges to each other, my thoughts have been con- 
tinually going to you as to another self. That an 
all-powerful Providence may keep us both in safety 
is the prayer of your ever faithful and ever affectionate 
friend, G. Washington." 

It was on January sixth, 1759, that a brilliant 
wedding took place at the little Virginia church. In 
the clear winter sunshine, the soldierly bridegroom, 
bravely clad in blue, silver and scarlet, gold buckles 
at knee and instep, rode beside the window of the 
coach and six that bore his radiant bride. Following 
them in other coaches was a party of "Virginia belles" 
in their beautiful silks and satins, attended by a group 
of His Majesty's officers, resplendent in red and gold. 

After three months of peaceful content at his bride's 

58 




MARTHA WASHINGTON 



home, Washington took his wife and her two little 
children, Jack and Patty Custis, to Mount Vernon. 

For fifteen years he gave himself to the life of a 
Virginia planter with the same right good will as he 
had to that of a soldier. Washington chose capable 
men for his overseers, but he himself looked to every 
detail of work on his large estates. Rising often be- 
fore light, early in the saddle, directing overseers and 
negroes, breaking in new horses, training his fine 
hunting dogs, studying and improving his crops, he 
passed his days. Washington believed that "Any- 
thing worth doing at all is worth doing well." He 
was a man like Franklin, who knew how to work with 
his hands and loved to do it. He often labored with 
his men, setting out trees, or skillfully swinging a 
hammer at a blacksmith's forge. 

He himself wrote all his letters and long orders to 
England. He watched the changes in foreign prices 
and duties. He kept exact account of every detail of 
his own and his wife's property. In a few years he 
became known as a planter on both sides of the At- 
lantic. England found his tobacco the best in all 
Virginia. Barrels of flour, marked "George Wash- 
ington — Mount Vernon" were passed without examin- 
ation at the West Indian ports. His wife's estate, 
joined to his own, made him one of the richest men 
in Virginia, where most planters were heavily in debt. 
But the increase of this wealth was due to hard work, 
thrift, wise management. When Washington died he 
owned more than fifty-one thousand acres of land, and 
was probably the greatest landholder in America. His 
estate was valued at more than a half million dollars. 

Devoted to his "dear Patsy," as he always called his 
wife, whose portrait in miniature he wore around his 
neck till the day of his death, and loving her two little 

59 



children as tenderly as if they were his own, these 
years at Mount Vernon were happy indeed. His 
house was always filled with guests. The pleasant 
life of Virginia, with its card parties and balls — he was 
particularly fond of dancing; the hearty hospitality of 
its homes, with their tea parties, "social and gay;" the 
blood warming zest of its fox hunts in the forests ; all 
these he keenly enjoyed. To his slaves and servants 
he was strict as a soldier, but he was just and kind. 
His blazing temper might flame up so hotly as nearly 
to destroy a cowardly poacher on his plantation, who 
raised a gun against him. Yet his heart was so 
tender" that he once gave the order that slaves stricken 
with small-pox were to be taken to his own room and 
a nurse sent for. He owned several hundred slaves, 
but at his death made provision in his will for the 
freedom of them all. He wished to see slavery abol- 
ished by law, but only a few generous and liberal men 
agreed with him. 

With the passing of the years since that day when 
Washington stood silent and modest before the House 
of Burgesses, he had gained ease and power in dealing 
with men. He was now a strong leader, because he 
had followed his own shrewd advice to a nephew, 
also a Burgess : "If you have a mind to command the 
attention of the House, speak seldom, but on import- 
ant subjects; and make yourself perfect master of 
the subject. Never exceed a decent warmth, and 
submit your sentiments with diffidence. A dictatorial 
style, though it may carry conviction, is always ac- 
companied with disgust." 

THE COMING OF THE REVOLUTION 

The colonies had come out of the French and Indian 
war sure of themselves and their power. They had 

60 



fought side by side with British regulars, and proved 
themselves their equals, and at times their superiors. 
Now heavy clouds were gathering. The storm 
broke with the Stamp Act of 1765. A roar of indig- 
nation burst forth in the colonies, crossed the ocean 
and startled the 'King and his ministers, startled even 
Benjamin Franklin himself, the shrewd and well in- 
formed American "agent" in London. It had begun 
not in rebellious Massachusetts, but in Virginia, where 
men were so loyal to the King, that they were 
often called "royalists." The year before, the House 
of Burgesses had sent to England its protest against 
"taxation without representation." But now the Stamp 
Act was law. Defiance meant rebellion. 

As soon as the House met to discuss the Stamp Act, 
Patrick Henry, a young lawyer of great power, sprang 
to his feet. Rough of garb and speech, awkward in 
movement, but quick to read and touch the hearts 
of men, his voice rang out like a trumpet in defiance 
of Parliament and for the liberties of Virginia: 
"Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Crom- 
well, and George the Third" . . . "Treason ! treason !" 
shouted some royalist members of the House. "If 
that be treason, make the most of it!" he boldly 
answered. It was the same great Henry, who later 
was to cry out in a famous speech: "Is life so dear, 
or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of 
chains and slavery. Forbid it. Almighty God ! I 
know not what course others may take, but, as for 
me, give me liberty or give me death." His bold 
warning started a furious debate. 

Almost single handed Patrick Henry won the fight. 
Through the battle of words Washington had sat 
apart, quiet and thoughtful. The governor held it 
his duty to dissolve the House, but he could not pre- 

61 



vent the proud and independent men of Virginia 
from thinking and discussing this vital question. 
Patrick Henry was soon known throughout the colon- 
ies for his brave and eloquent defense of the rights 
of Englishmen in America. 

Washington rejoiced in the repeal of the Stamp Act. 
But he soon knew that the great question had not 
been settled. A mighty struggle was about to begin, 
and from peaceful Mount Vernon he watched the 
thickening storm of war. He heard from across the 
seas the voice of England : "Parliament has power to 
bind the colonies in all cases whatsoever." Yet Parlia- 
ment had withdrawn the hated taxes from everything 
but tea. But paying a tax on tea would still be 
"taxation without representation," and the colonies 
held to their rights as Englishmen. Washington 
watched the growing spirit of rebellion ; he heard 
the amazing story of the arrival of British troops in 
the old New England city of Boston, of the bloodshed 
in her streets. People were soon talking of war. In 
anger he wrote to a friend : "At a time when our 
lordly masters in Great Britain will be satisfied with 
nothing less than the deprivation of American free- 
dom, something should be done to avert the stroke, 
and maintain that liberty which we have derived 
from our ancestors. That no man should scruple or 
hesitate a moment to use arms in defense of so valu- 
able a blessing is clearly my opinion. Yet arms, I 
would beg leave to add, should be the last resource." 

A heavy stillness filled the air. Even the savage 
Indians were dully restless like animals that fear a 
coming storm. Self-made leaders sprang up in Vir- 
ginia : Patrick Henry, Dabney Carr, Richard Henry 
Lee and Thomas Jefferson. Plans of action were dis- 

63 



cussed and adopted by these patriots, who were one in 
mind and heart. 

At this time of public stress and strain, when all 
men were anxious, a great sorrow came to Washing- 
ton. At the age of sixteen, beautiful Patty Custis 
died. She had been the darling of Washington's 
heart from the time he wrote in his diary, "for Miss 
Custis, 4 years old, 1 fashionable dressed baby 10 shil- 
lings," and, "other toys 10 shillings," till he was order- 
ing party dresses, and slippers for her dancing feet. 
Her death brought one of the heaviest sorrows of his 
life. Upon Nellie Custis, her little niece, Washington 
in after years showered the affection he had given to 
his lost Patty. 

Torn from his grief by the danger of his country, 
the patriot was at once ready for service. Boston had 
now seen the opening of the Revolution. In defiance, 
fifty of her citizens, dressed as Mohawk Indians, had 
tossed three hundred and forty chests of taxed tea into 
the sea. And in punishment the English Parliament 
had closed Boston's rebel port to all commerce. The 
day on which this happened was made a day of prayer 
and fasting by the Virginia Assembly, and for this 
act it was promptly dissolved by the governor of 
Virginia. Washington's fighting blood was now 
roused. "Shall we after this whine and cry for relief," 
he wrote, "when we have already tried it in vain?" 
With fire in his eye and a masterly strength in his 
words that stirred the hearts of his hearers, he spoke 
at Williamsburg before representatives from all Vir- 
ginia: "I will raise one thousand men," he cried, 
"enlist them at my own expense and march, myself at 
their head, for the relief of Boston." That very day 
he was chosen one of six men to attend the first con- 
gress of the colonies. 

63 



THE FIRST CONTINENTAL CONGRESS 

Late in sultry August, 1774, three horsemen, George 
Washington, Patrick Henry and Edmund Pendleton, 
rode slowly and soberly forth from Mt. Vernon on the 
long journey to the North. These were Martha 
Washington's parting words : "I hope you will all 
stand firm. I know George will. God be with you, 
gentlemen." Twenty years before, Washington, a 
young and carefree officer, brilliant in gold lace and 
arms, had ridden gayly with his comrades through 
this very forest, the future bright with the dreams of 
youth. Now a man in the prime of his life, and 
marked by recent sorrow, he rode gravely, before his 
eyes the troubled future, his country's burden heavy 
on his heart. 

On the fifth of September in Carpenter's Hall, 
Philadelphia, there met the first congress of the colo- 
nies that was ever held in America. Fifty-one men, 
strangers from North and South, yet brothers in a 
common cause, looked into each other's eyes. English- 
men all they were, who still sang "God Save the King," 
but at the same time demanded from the King the 
rights and liberties that belonged by birth to all 
Englishmen. This was their first opportunity to 
know each other and to act together as one. Among 
them were many great and noble men — orators and 
statesmen — since famous as patriots. Here Washing- 
ton was soon known by all, and known, not as a man 
of words, but as a man of action, of solid information 
and sound judgement. 

The independence of the colonies was as yet rarely 
spoken of. Franklin declared that he had talked with 
all classes of people, in all parts of the country, but 
had never heard independence mentioned. And 

64 



Washington wrote to a captain of the King's troops 
in Boston: "Though you are taught to beheve that 
the people of Massachusetts are rebeUious, setting up 
for independence, and what not, give me leave, my 
good friend, to tell you that you are abused, grossly 
abused. It is not the wish or interest of that govern- 
ment, or any other upon this continent, to set up for 
independence. But this you may at the same time 
rely on, that none of them will ever submit to the loss 
of those valuable rights and privileges, which are 
essential to the happiness of every free state and 
without which life, liberty and property are rendered 
totally insecure." 

After seven weeks of debate. Congress drew up a 
petition to the King and memorials to the people of 
Great Britain and America. Here was indeed no re- 
bellion, but a Declaration of Rights from free sub- 
jects to their 'King, rights they would give their lives 
to defend. Washington rode homeward, thoughtful 
and prepared for the worst. "I could wish, I own," 
he had said in Philadelphia, "that this dispute had been 
left to posterity." 

The great Chatham earnestly defended America's 
cause. Speaking in Parliament of the repeal of the 
taxes, he cried: "It is not cancelling a piece of parch- 
ment that can win back America. You must respect 
her fears and her resentments." But England tossed 
aside America's Declaration of Rights. King and 
Parliament were alike blind to the future. Massa- 
chusetts was declared in rebellion and the seaports 
of New England were closed. 

Angry defiance swept America from North to 
South. " We must fight," cried Patrick Henry. "I 
repeat it, sir, we must fight. An appeal to arms and 
the God of Hosts is all that is left us." A frenzy of 

65 



preparation now seized the colonists. By February 
the news came from Williamsburg: "The whole coun- 
try is full of soldiers, all furnished, all in arms. Never 
was such vigor and concord heard of." Each company 
of troops, formed in Virginia, called for Washington 
as its commander. At the end of March the second 
Continental Congress summoned him to be at Phila- 
delphia May 10th. Strong to serve his country in her 
hour of danger, he accepted the call, saying simply: 
"It is my full intention to devote my life and my 
fortune to this cause." 

Stirring news came from the village of Lexington 
near Boston. The British regulars had secretly 
marched from Boston at midnight to seize the military 
stores at Concord. The news of their starting had been 
flashed by a lantern from the steeple of the Old North 
Church, and Paul Revere, clattering on horseback 
over moonlit roads, had "spread the alarm for the 
countryside to be up and to arm." In the morning, 
the 19th of April, a band of patriots called "Minute 
Men," because they were ready to be called out "on 
the minute," had "fired the shot heard round the 
world." By night the British had been forced back 
to Boston by the Massachusetts militia, leaving nearly 
three hundred men in the king's red coats lying silent 
in the roads and meadows. Early the next day the 
colonial army was swarming about Boston. 

THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF 

To the Congress at Philadelphia Washington rode. 
War had begun. The work of Congress this time was 
not to discuss, but to act. Before Boston sixteen thou- 
sand men from North and South had flocked to the 
standard in a week. The first need was for Congress to 

66 



appoint a strong commander to hold this army to- 
gether. The power of Washington's tall and majestic 
figure in his military cloak drew all eyes to him. It 
was John Adams of Massachusetts, who rose, and said 
that he had "but one gentleman in mind" to command 
the army, "a gentleman from Virginia, who is among 
us and very well known to all of us ; a gentleman 
whose skill and experience as an officer could unite 
the cordial exertions of all the colonies, better than 
any other person in the Union." Washington, sur- 
prised and modest, slipped silently from the room. 

On the sixteenth of June Washington accepted the 
commission in words that won him honor. First of all, 
he refused to receive any payment for his services, and 
then continued: 'T beg it may be remembered by every 
gentleman in this room, that I this day declare with 
the utmost sincerity I do not think myself equal to 
the command I am honored with." 

And the Commander-in-Chief wrote his wife: "You 
may believe me, my dear Patsy, that so far from seek- 
ing this appointment, I have used every endeavor 
to avoid it. I should enjoy more real happiness with 
you at home than I have the most distant prospect 
of finding abroad, if my stay were to be seven times 
seven years. But as it has been a kind of destiny that 
has thrown me upon this service, I shall hope that 
my undertaking it is designed to answer some good 
purpose." 

By June twenty-first Washington and his escort of 
troops were on the road to Boston. Long afterward 
it was told how along the way, men and women, lifting 
their little children, pressed forward to look upon 
their commander. After his noble form and face had 
passed, they turned again to their work with new 

67 



strength and courage. They had seen the man who 
was to be the champion of their rights. 

The troops before Boston had not waited for Wash- 
ington's coming to strike the British. The English 
general, William Howe, and his trained regulars, ten 
thousand strong, held the city. British men-of-war 
lay in the harbor. Yet the raw troops of America had 
been first to seize and fortify the hills of Charleston, 
that commanded Boston. Charging up to the unfin- 
ished earthworks, three thousand British regulars were 
met again and again by a deadly fire from seventeen 
hundred resolute farmers. Powderless, the patriots 
at last retreated, but one thousand men was the price 
the British had paid for the victory of Bunker Hill. 

The news met Washington just after he had started 
on the march for Boston, only twenty miles from Phila- 
delphia. "Did the provincials stand the fire of the 
regular troops?" he asked anxiously. "That they did, 
and held their own fire in reserve until the enemy was 
within eight rods." "Then the liberties of the country 
are safe !" cried Washington. 

Honored by escorts, parades and addresses in all the 
towns he passed, the Commander-in-Chief at last rode 
into Cambridge, three miles from Boston. The shouts 
of soldiers and the roar of cannon told the British in 
the city that Washington had come. The troops were 
drawn up before the tents of the American camp. And 
there, on July 3, 1775, on the green grass of Cambridge 
Common, crowds gathered in the breathless heat. A 
group of horsemen rode to the shade of a great elm 
tree that still stands. One splendid figure among them 
was the center for all eyes. Erect and handsome in 
his uniform of blue and bufif, Washington gravely drew 
his sword from its scabbard and raised it high in the 
air. With a ringing shout of loyalty, these staid New 

68 



England people and soldiers took their Virginia gen- 
eral to their hearts. 

THE FIRST OF THE REVOLUTION 

It was a strange-looking army that Washington had 
come to command, uniformed and armed in a hap- 
hazard way, short of all supplies, eager to fight but 
rough of tongue and loose of discipline. The story is 
told that when Washington heard that there was in 
camp not half a pound of powder to a man, he was 
so struck by the peril of the army, that he did not 
utter a word for half an hour. By a Yankee trick, 
barrels filled with sand and topped with powder were 
delivered to the American army, to hide this dangerous 
truth from the British. 

Eight months of hard and rapid work now followed. 
Washington soon proved himself a born teacher and 
leader of men — the Commander-in-Chief the country 
needed to save it. How wonderful was this work on 
the field and in his busy headquarters : Directing the 
building of earth-works and trenches for the shelter 
of his men, teaching and training his new troops, fixing 
the rank of his officers and soothing their jealousies, 
sending out privateers to capture British ships as 
prizes, hunting the country over for powder, writing 
countless letters ! 

But the hardest work of all was with Congress. 
Washington was continually urging it to furnish sup- 
plies to feed, clothe and arm his men. And again and 
again he implored it to make the term of enlistment 
of his soldiers longer, for, as they were obliged to serve 
for only six months or less, he saw his army melting 
away before his very eyes. It was the good fortune 
of America that the British were so content to rest in 

69 



Boston all these months. In the end, by Washington's 
hard work, a new army took the place of the old. 

Washington, it is true, was Commander-in-Chief, 
but in every important matter he was still required 
to ask the advice of his generals. By the end of 
August he had hoped to drive the British from Boston. 
"Strike now !" he said, "and perhaps we need not 
strike again." But not until February could he per- 
suade his generals to act. Early one morning the 
British in Boston saw ramparts and cannon on Dor- 
chester Heights. They rubbed their eyes and looked 
again. "It is like the work of the genie of Aladdin's 
wonderful lamp," exclaimed one of the astonished "red 
coats." The night before under cover of heavy can- 
nonading, far out at East Cambridge, two thousand 
Americans with their heavily laden wagons had 
reached the hills of Dorchester. Almost by magic 
their defenses grew, Washington giving more speed 
to their work by reminding them that that very day, 
March the 5th, six years before, British troops had 
first fired upon Americans. Bitterly the men thought 
of the Boston Massacre. 

Slow to attack, remembering their heavy losses at 
Bunker Hill, Howe and the British waited. At last 
American shot and shell sang over the city. The 
American position was too strong to be taken. To 
remain meant destruction. So, the British army of 
ten thousand men, leaving valuable stores of all kinds, 
sailed for Halifax and were soon safely four hundred 
miles away to the North. The American army entered 
Boston, and Congress presented Washington with a 
gold medal as the deliverer of the city. Washington 
took for his new headquarters the house in which the 
British general, Howe, had lived. One day he lifted 
his landlady's small granddaughter on his knee, and 

70 



smilingly asked her which she liked better, the "red 
coats" or the provincials. "The 'red coats/ " said the 
child. "Ah, my dear," said the general, an amused 
gleam in his blue eyes, "they look better, but they 
don't fight. The ragged fellows are the boys for fight- 
ing." 

By the middle of April Washington and his little 
army were in New York, where they were soon to be 
needed more than in Boston. He went to Philadel- 
phia and urged upon Congress the need of separation 
from the mother country. Strengthened by his pres- 
ence and influence, on the Fourth of July, 1776, a day 
that every year since has been celebrated by Americans 
as the birthday of the nation. Congress adopted and 
gave to the world the Declaration of Independence, 
written by Washington's friend, Thomas Jefferson. 
The Commander-in-Chief solemnly read its great 
words to his army. Men now knew they were no 
longer Colonials or Provincials or Englishmen, but 
free Americans and citizens of the Republic of the 
United States. In adopting the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, Washington and his fellow patriots pro- 
claimed that "all men are created equal," and that all 
have a right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happi- 
ness." 

New York was now to be the center of the war. 
Already thirty thousand of the very best of the British 
troops had been landed on Staten Island in New York 
Bay. English men-of-war rode at anchor in the Hud- 
son, General Howe one day threw twenty thousand 
of his picked troops against five thousand Americans 
in their trenches on the hills of Brooklyn, just across 
the bay. Taking one thousand prisoners and driving 
the Americans back to the heights, where Washington 
had now come with the rest of the American army^ 

71 



Howe decided to wait till morning and then over- 
whelm them. But by the morning his prey was gone. 
For, ordering a company of his men to keep np a brisk 
firing at the British outposts throughout the night, as 
if an advance at any minute might be ordered, Wash- 
ington, almost exhausted after forty-eight hours in the 
saddle, had taken his ten thousand men, their baggage 
and arms, safely across the East River, in spite of tide 
and heavy mist. This was the second great surprise 
that Washington had given Howe. Here, as in Bos- 
ton, the American Commander-in-Chief proved the 
greater general. 

But now, facing a much larger army, it was for 
Washington to retreat. His new and untrained troops 
sadly discouraged, the British army and navy threat- 
ening New York, he saw that battle was impossible. 
Fighting inch by inch, he retreated to the North. 
Once he met some of his soldiers running away from 
the British. In a storm of anger, he cried, "Are these 
the men with whom I am to defend America !" And, 
blind to danger, with sword and pistol, he furiously 
drove them back to their duty. One of his aides, 
seeing him within range of the British guns, grasped 
his horse's bridle, and pulled him back. 

Followed by the British, he withdrew farther north, 
defeated them at Harlem Heights ; held his ground for 
a time until again seeing he would be overwhelmed by 
numbers, he left New York for New Jersey, crossing 
the Hudson River. 

Then began a remarkable retreat. Lord Cornwallis, 
following him with a large and victorious army, 
crossed the Hudson so promptly that, in their haste 
to escape, the Americans left their dinner kettles boil- 
ing on the fire at Fort Lee. Washington now had 
far more to fear than the danger of a battle with the 

72 



British, who were at his heels. Some of his men were 
deserting. Others were leaving, their enlistment 
ended; and there were few new recruits to fill the 
vacant places, for the first enthusiasm of the war had 
passed. Many of the people, in terror, were taking 
the oath to support King George III. Even Congress 
in alarm had left Philadelphia and gone to Baltimore. 
But Washington, with courage that never failed, saved 
his army by a rapid march south through New Jersey. 
He burned the bridges behind him, and often he had 
to destroy food and powder, which he could not carry, 
because the enemy pressed so hard after him. But at 
last with three thousand men he put the broad Dela- 
ware between himself and his foes. 

Cornwallis, sure of success, hurried up to the banks 
of the river in pursuit, only to find the Americans 
gone and no boats for seventy miles. The British 
never seemed to understand the man they were fight- 
ing. Washington was as clever in retreating when 
the enemy outnumbered his army, as he was in fight- 
ing and winning a battle, when he could fight on equal 
terms. "The old fox," Cornwallis called him. 

WINNING AND LOSING 

By the end of the year, Washington had gathered 
together six thousand men, and with them he struck 
the British at Trenton a blow that put a new heart 
into Americans. Of a sudden, on Christmas night, 
in the black darkness, amid heavy cakes of ice that 
crunched against the boats, Washington and twenty- 
five hundred men crossed the Delaware. Then came 
a nine mile march over rough and icy roads, through 
heavy snow that blinded the eyes and froze on the 
guns. Two men died of the cold on that terrible night. 

73 



It was morning-, when they reached the camp of the 
Hessians — the German soldiers that the British had 
hired to help them destroy the liberties of America. 
A hard battle at the point of the bayonet for nearly 
an hour and all was over. Col. Rahl, the commander, 
lay dead and one thousand of his men were prisoners. 
At once Gen. Cornwallis with an army of eight thou- 
sand came to punish and capture Washington. Close 
to the American tents on the Delaware the British 
camped for the night, Cornwallis telling his officers: 
"At last we have run down the old fox, and we'll bag 
him in the morning." 

But once again the American fox was too wise to 
wait for the morning. Leaving a few men behind 
him to keep his camp fires burning, and to work 
noisily with their shovels so that the British would 
believe he was throwing up earth-works, Washington 
led his whole force by a roundabout road to Princeton, 
where in the morning he crushed the British rear in a 
sharp fight, calling in delight to his generals : "An 
old-fashioned Virginia fox-hunt, gentlemen !" And he 
gave the loud shout, the view-halloo, that the hunters 
cry when they first see the fox and dash after him with 
their hounds. Cornwallis could neither believe his eyes 
the next morning, when he saw that the Americans 
had vanished, nor could he believe his ears, when he 
heard of the defeat of his men at Princeton. There 
was soon nothing left for him to do but return to 
New York. 

Within three weeks the tables were turned. Wash- 
ington had driven the British from all but two of their 
posts in New Jersey. Frederick the Great, of Prussia, 
the greatest soldier of that day, said that it was the 
most brilliant campaign of the century. And he ad- 
ded: "This young American general opens a fresh 

74 



chapter in the art of war; England hasn't a man to 
match him." The American people now felt that the 
Revolution was safe in Washington's hands, and Con- 
gress at last gave him complete power over the army. 

There was little fighting the rest of that winter. In 
the spring, Washington checked the British at every 
turn. But they soon had a plan for making their 
power secure in the State of New York. To help this 
plan Howe wished to capture Philadelphia and to 
destroy Washington's army. Washington could not 
save Philadelphia, and with his smaller army could do 
little but delay and obstruct the British. In this he 
did much, for he was to them a danger always at hand. 
But he was to know defeat, too, at the battles of 
Brandywine and Germantown, though it had seemed 
impossible to the people that he could be defeated. 
For the Americans the one success of the year was the 
surrender of Gen. Burgoyne and his entire army at 
Saratoga, in northern New York. This ended British 
power in the North, gave the struggling patriots new 
courage, and, as we have seen, helped Franklin get 
money and men from France to establish the liberties 
of our young Republic. 

Howe and his generals now settled down in com- 
fort for a season of gayety in Philadelphia, and Wash- 
ington and his troops went forAvard to the cold and 
hardship of the camp at Valley Forge. During this 
winter of '77 the tide of the Revolution was at its 
lowest ebb. The men in Congress cared more for the 
interests of their own states than they did for the 
welfare of the whole country. And there was even 
plotting against Washington himself. 

In this time of great peril for the new nation, it was 
only Washington and a few men like him that held 
the union of states together. He always shared the 



hardships of his men; he often slept on the ground; 
his food was sometimes only the boiled corn meal, 
that the Indians called "sepawn." His army, now- 
filled with men of one heart, adored him ; with him, 
and for him alone, they endured Valley Forge. Half 
naked, hungry, thin and pale of face, they worked in 
the fast falling snow, "like a family of beavers," at 
the log and mud huts that were to be their only 
shelter through the long, cold winter, within only a 
day's march of the enemy. Horses died of starvation, 
and starving men hauled their loads. Washington's 
soldiers were often shoeless, and as he wrote Con- 
gress, "their marches might be traced by the blood 
from their feet. From lack of blankets, numbers have 
been obliged, and still are, to sit up all night by fires, 
instead of taking comfortable rest in a natural and 
common way." Supplies failing, and hoping for no 
help from Congress, Washington at last forced the 
country people, who had been selling to the British 
in Philadelphia, to feed the patriot army. Mrs. 
Washington bravely shared even Valley Forge with 
her general. The officers' wives, too, joined them. 
Washington's whole soul was in the effort to keep 
his army alive that his country might have liberty. 
In after days an old Quaker told how he had seen 
a horse tied to a tree in a lonely wood at Valley 
Forge, and going farther along the path, saw Wash- 
ington among some bushes on his knees in prayer. 

THE TURN OF THE TIDE 

By March there was new life in camp. Baron 
Steuben, a very able and experienced German officer, 
came to Valley Forge to help the American cause. 
Wonderful was the drill and training he gave the tired 

76 



men. He turned them into erect, disciplined soldiers. 
"You say to your soldier: 'Do this,' and he does it," 
he wrote to a friend in Germany. "But I am obliged 
to say to mine. 'This is the reason why you ought 
to do that,' and then he does it." But he grew to like 
the independent American and to admire his spirit. 

With Steuben, to help in the great struggle for 
liberty, came the heroic Polish soldiers Kosciusko and 
Pulaski, and from France the young and able Lafay- 
ette, passionately devoted to the cause. 

Late at night on the 4th of May, the good news 
came to camp that France had made an alliance with 
the United States and would help in her struggle for 
freedom. A madness of joy seized Valley Forge. 
Public thanksgiving was made. There were balls and 
a public dinner — shouts for the King of France — 
shouts for the United States. But for Washington 
there were ringing huzzas and thousands of hats tossed 
high in the air. 

Philadelphia was now of little use to the British. 
At any time a French fleet might sail up the Delaware 
and bombard it, and Washington was always threat- 
ening the rear. Orders came from England to with- 
draw to New York. Succeeding Howe, Gen. Clinton 
started his march from Philadelphia, with Washing- 
ton hard after him. Clinton reached New York with 
the wreck of an army, and shrewd old Frederick the 
Great, watching the struggle from over the sea, said: 
"America is probably lost for England." 

The British then turned their attacks to the states 
farthest south. They sent a large army by sea and 
won Georgia and South Carolina, and though men 
like Marion and Sumter and their brave bands kept 
up a desperate fight with their midnight raids, the 
American army failed in every attack it made on the 

77 



British in their new strongholds in the South. Eng- 
land now looked on America as at her feet. And in 
America things again seemed dark indeed. Congress 
was weaker than ever. As always, each state thought 
only of its own interests. And Washington was 
deeply troubled. The nation, he thought, was like a 
clock. Of what use is it, he asked, to keep the smaller 
wheels in order, if the great wheel, which is like the 
government of Congress and gives life and movement 
to them all, is neglected? 

At this dark time treason was added. Men were 
again deserting from the American army and going 
over to the enemy to get pay, food and clothing. And 
a heavier blow was to fall. The gallant Benedict 
Arnold, trusted by Washington and loved by the army, 
proved a traitor, and basely agreed to give up West 
Point, the fort and its nearby posts on the Hudson 
River, to the British. This struck Washington to the 
heart ; mighty sobs shook him, and alone the night 
through, he ceaselessly paced his room, 

THE VICTORY AND AFTER 

There is an old proverb that ''It is always darkest 
just before dawn." And the year 1781 saw the com- 
ing of victory to the American cause. The American 
generals, Green, Morgan, Baron Steuben, "Light 
Horse Harry" Lee and Lafayette drove the British 
general. Lord Cornwallis, north into Virginia. Here 
he took his stand at Yorktown. Washington was on 
the Hudson River watching Clinton in New York. 
With great skill and secrecy he now prepared to deal 
his final blow. On a sudden, with two thousand 
Americans and four thousand Frenchmen under 
Rochambeau, by forced marches he struck rapidly 

78 



across the four hundred miles of country to Virginia — 
his own generals did not know where he was going — 
and, with Lafayette's force by land, and a great French 
fleet in Chesapeake Bay, laid siege to Cornwallis — the 
very Cornwallis that had once sought to bag "the 
American fox." In a few weeks Washington had 
sixteen thousand men before Yorktown, and on the 
nineteenth of October, 1781, Cornwallis, caught in a 
trap, surrendered with his whole army. 

It was the end of the long and heroic struggle. To 
his officers Washington simply said : "The work is 
done and well done." And he ordered his army to 
give thanks to God "with gratitude of heart," 

Yorktown was the last battle of the war, but two 
trying years dragged by before the treaty of peace 
with England was signed. Fortunately through this 
hard time Washington, now the people's hero, in his 
headquarters at Newburg on the Hudson River still 
held command of the army. It was his work then 
that crowned his service. Congress was weak, as it 
had been from the beginning, the states ever indif- 
ferent. The army could not be disbanded until peace 
was assured by the signing of the treaty with England, 
yet Congress left the troops uncared for and unpaid. 
There was discontent and even mutiny. Hardly six 
months after Yorktown, Washington was handed a 
letter from one of his oldest and most trusted officers, 
gravely proposing that he should permit the army to 
make him king, and so put an end to the weak and 
selfish government of the young republic. In terrible 
anger Washington stamped the proposal as treason. 

But even Washington could not check the flood of 
the army's wrath. And it was not long before an 
address was printed and scattered through the camp, 
calling a meeting of the officers. It held these dan- 

79 



gerous, stirring words: "Can you consent to be the 
only sufferers by the Revolution? If you can, go, 
carry with you the ridicule and, what is worse, the 
pity of the world. Go, starve, and be forgotten. But 
if you have spirit enough to oppose tyranny, awake 
and redress yourselves." Now Washington's power 
and tact were seen. He himself called his officers 
together, rose before them gravely and sadly, took 
from his pocket a paper, and as he put on his glasses 
to read it, said simply: "Gentlemen, you will permit 
me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown 
gray, but almost blind in the service of my country." 
Solemnly he spoke. He had indeed rebuke for the 
words of mutiny, but only sympathy for the wrongs 
of the men. With close attention, and ever more 
gravely, all listened to his words of wise advice and 
hope of justice from Congress; and when he had 
gone, leaving them free to act, they acted as befitted 
officers of his. Immediately Washington warned Con- 
gress of the peril that threatened, and Congress 
at last came to its senses and met the army's demands 
in part. 

Tired and worn by his long service, Washington's 
whole heart longed for peace and Mt. Vernon. Only 
once in all those years of Revolution had he seen his 
home, and that was on a hurried march to Yorktown. 
Again death had come to Mount Vernon. His step- 
son, Jack Custis, who had grown to manhood and 
served bravely at Yorktown, had died. Now there 
was a young widow and her children, whom he longed 
to comfort with a father's love. 

At last the day came when the army was disbanded 
and Washington, at Fraunce's Tavern in Broad Street, 
New York, bade his ofiEicers good-bye. His deep feel- 
ing made it hard for him to speak. Raising his glass, 

80 



he ended his toast with the words : "I cannot come 
to each of you and take my leave, but I shall be 
obliged, if you will come and take me by the hand." 
The tears were in his eyes as he grasped the hand of 
Gen. Knox, who stood nearest. The great commander 
drew him closer and kissed him. Not an officer there 
but was shown the same love and tenderness. Passing 
between lines of infantry at guard and, followed by 
the whole silent company, Washington walked to 
Whitehall. From the barge that bore him away, he 
waved his hat for a last farewell. A few days later, 
at Annapolis, standing before Congress, he resigned 
his commission, "commending the interests of our 
dearest country to the protection of Almighty God." 

ONCE MORE A VIRGINIA PLANTER 

By the Christmas of 1783 he was back in the home 
he loved. Once more the peace for which he had a 
passion ; once more the familiar scenes opened before 
him, the hearty Southern life, the old friendships. Mrs. 
Washington joyfully settled down again to the "duties 
of an old-fashioned Virginia housekeeper," as she 
said, "steady as a clock, busy as a bee, and cheerful 
as a cricket." It was a long severe winter that year 
and a happy household was held snowbound at Mt. 
Vernon. There were the quiet days with his "dear 
Patsy," and Jack Custis's two young children. A 
letter remains to tell of his content: "At length, my 
dear Marquis," he wrote to Lafayette, "I am become 
a private citizen on the banks of the Potomac; and 
under the shadow of my own vine and my own fig 
tree, free from the bustle of a camp and the busy 
scenes of public life, envious of none, I am determined 
to be pleased with all ; and this, my dear friend, being 

81 



the order of my march, I will move gently down the 
stream of time until I sleep with my fathers." 

Thorough in everything he did, Washington would 
not permit even his most important visitors to hinder 
his work. He rose very early. His letters were all 
written before breakfast, and his breakfast he took 
always at seven-thirty o'clock. After that he was in 
the saddle and off to his farm, or the hunt. He spent 
the long afternoon in his library working at papers. 
Only at dinner did he give himself to the pleasure of 
his guests' company. Every one stood somewhat in 
awe of him, except his intimate friends and the two 
happy Custis children. Lafayette, soon his guest, 
delighted to watch the great George and his tiny 
namesake together — "a very little gentleman," he 
says, "with a feather in his hat, holding fast to one 
finger of the good General's remarkable great hand." 

In the autumn of 1784, Washington made a long 
tour of over seven hundred miles on horseback, be- 
yond the nearby mountains towards the North and 
West. He first went through the very woods where 
he had gone as a young surveyor and soldier. And 
then he took Braddock's road. That way immigrant 
settlers were now crowding in greater numbers, push- 
ing westward to the valleys of the Ohio and Missis- 
sippi Rivers. His mind was filled with visions of the 
great future before our country. And as he watched 
the growth of the nation, he had a fear that the weak 
government of the new republic might not be able 
to hold these western settlers within the union of the 
United States, separated as they were, from the East 
by the natural wall of the Allegheny Mountains. 

To-day the forty eight states of the nation cover 
the entire width of the continent from the Atlantic 
to the Pacific Ocean. There is no possibility of di- 



vision between them. They are strongly united and 
in every common interest act as one under the Con^ 
stitution. But in 1784 it was still almost impossible 
to get the separate states to do anything as a nation. 
There was Congress, of course, but Congress had little 
power. " We are either a united people, or we are 
not," wrote Washington. "If the former, let us in 
all matters of general concern act as a nation which 
has a national character to support. If we are not, 
let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it." The 
future looked threatening. Still managing his estates, 
his whole mind and all his letters were filled with 
this danger and the means of averting it. In spite of 
his earnest wish to live a quiet life away from the 
world and its clamor, he had become too important 
and useful a citizen. The world knocked constantly 
at his door, and his country still had need of him. 

Yet nothing at Mt. Vernon was neglected. Agri- 
culture was always Washington's delight, and it now 
seemed his greatest pride to be thought the first 
farmer of America. He used to say that it was 
better to make improvements on the earth, than to 
have all the vain glory of ravaging it that would be 
possible for the greatest conqueror. He kept to his 
old habits. "He often works with his men himself," 
said a guest, "strips ofif his coat and labors like a 
common man, and shows a great turn for mechanics." 
He was the same simple gentleman who had left his 
home and ridden to Philadelphia, and then to Cam- 
bridge to take command of the army, only because his 
country called. 

BUILDING THE CONSTITUTION 

A violent rebellion, that broke out in Massachusetts 
to free the people of that state altogether from the 

83 



Union, was checked. It had the sympathy of Ver- 
mont and Rhode Island, and it showed the disaster 
a weak government could cause. After long effort 
and long discussion the great Constitutional Con- 
vention of 1787, each state represented, met at Phila- 
delphia. In it Washington saw one great desire ful- 
filled. And in spite of his own wish to remain at Mt. 
Vernon, he consented to head Virginia's list of dele- 
gates and to be the president of the convention. 

The delegates were late in arriving. Many were 
anxious and full of fear. Washington calmed them. 
Their duty was plain, he thought. And he spoke these 
words that are now famous, as the ideal of the fathers 
of the Republic: "Let us raise a standard to which 
the wise and honest can repair. Th"e event is in the 
hand of God." Four months later, on the 17th of 
September, and in no small part due to Washington's 
faithful and able work, the Constitution was drawn 
up and signed by the delegates. The story is told 
that as Washington took the pen to write the first 
signature, he said: "Should the states reject this ex- 
cellent Constitution, the probability is that an oppor- 
tunity will never again be offered to cancel another 
in peace ; the next will be drawn in blood." 

Ten months of discussion throughout the country 
followed before the Constitution was adopted by the 
states. Then the nation received the government, 
strong and wise, that it has kept unchanged all these 
many years. 

THE FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE 
UNITED STATES 

At once the whole country with one voice called 
for Washington as the first president of the United 
States. "We cannot, sir, do without you," said 

84 





fio.„ Hoticl. 



Governor Johnson of Maryland," and I and thousands 
more can explain to anybody but yourself why we 
cannot do without you." Washington said, that more 
than ever before in his life, he was uncertain and 
distrustful of his own powers. But when he saw 
that every vote of the electors was for him, he no 
longer doubted that it was his duty, and not another's, 
to lead the new nation to a place of honor and respect 
in the world. 

Waiting only to take a last farewell of his dear 
old mother, whom he was never to see again, Wash- 
ington rode forth to the North along the road that 
had so often led to greater duties and greater honors. 
At Trenton a splendid arch of flowers was raised for 
him. Young girls in procession, singing, strewed 
roses in his path. Civil and military honors were 
everywhere showered upon him. Those who were 
near him often saw tears in his eyes. In New York 
never was known such rejoicing. "The display of boats 
which attended and joined us," he wrote in his diary, 
"the decorations of the ships, the roar of the cannon, 
and the loud acclamations of the people which rent 
the skies as I walked along the streets, filled my mind 
with sensations as painful as they were pleasant." 

On the 30th of April, in the year 1789, Washington 
stepped out upon the open balcony of the Federal 
Hall in Wall Street, New York, which was the first 
capital of the United States. The waiting crowd 
below sent up a great shout at sight of him, and then 
silence fell upon them. Time had not bent that tall 
and majestic figure. He was dressed in sober brown 
— American woven cloth. He wore long white silk 
stockings, silver shoe buckles and a steel-hilted sword. 
His hair, lightly powdered, was drawn back and tied 
in a queue. The face that a nation loved fulfilled the 

85 



promise of his boyhood. The years had brought 
power, character, a wonderful mastery of himself. 
The toil and the care of the years, it is true, had left 
their mark there; but it was a calm and serene face, 
showing a noble sincerity, the large clear eyes giving 
it strength and dignity. Gravely he stood in the 
presence of the people, as the Chancellor of the State 
of New York gave him the oath. 

'T do solemnly swear," replied Washington, "that 
I will faithfully execute the office of President of the 
United States and will, to the best of my ability, pre- 
serve, protect and defend the Constitution of the 
United States" — "So help me God," he added, his 
voice shaken, as he bowed to kiss the Bible before 
him. "Long live George Washington, President of 
the United States," cried the Chancellor to the people. 
Then a mighty shout and the booming of cannon 
shattered the silence. 

With trembling voice in the Senate Chamber — all 
men standing to show their respect for him — he read 
his first message to Congress and to the country. In 
noble words he gave himself to the work of founding 
the Republic, that the Constitution had made possible. 
And this was the heart of his message: That the 
new nation could only be built on the eternal rules of 
order and of right ; that the great duty of the Republic 
was to preserve "the sacred fire of liberty"; and that 
the hope of the world for liberty and for a govern- 
ment by the people was staked, "perhaps -finally staked," 
he said, on this experiment of freedom intrusted to 
the hands of the American people. 

Washington had been a successful planter, and he 
had proved himself a great soldier. He was now to 
prove his powers as a statesman. He knew that ex- 
treme care was the first thing needed in the building 

86 



of the new government. "I walk," he said, "on un- 
trodden ground." He knew that a single false step 
might be used as an example in the far distant future. 
He knew that the old union of the Revolution had 
failed because of its weakness and the selfishness of 
the states. He said that the new government must 
establish its strength and dignity at the very begin- 
ning; and it must be firm, prudent, kind and just, to' 
gain love and loyalty, as well as respect, from the 
people. 

Earnestly Washington plunged into the hard work 
of organizing the government. During that summer 
he read and studied all the letters and papers that had 
passed between Congress and foreign governments 
since the close of the war. He called for reports from 
the old heads of the different departments. And these 
he studied. In this way, working early and late, 
reading, studying, questioning, discussing, he care- 
fully learned all the business of the government. He 
was its real head and master. 

Within six months Congress had organized, federal 
courts had been established and Washington had 
selected the members of his cabinet, his chief advisers. 
They were all young and able men, with special knowl- 
edge of the work that they were to undertake. For 
other important work Washington succeeded in per- 
suading the best men in the country to take positions 
under the new government. 

The need of the nation was pressing. A govern- 
ment, like a man, cannot have credit unless it pays 
its debts, and so one of the first acts of the new govern- 
ment was to lay before Congress a plan for the settle- 
ment of the public debt, that had grown to so great a 
sum during the Revolution. This plan to pay all the 
debts of Congress and of the states was carefully 

87 



written out in the form of a law. After a long dis- 
cussion it was accepted by both houses of Congress — 
the House of Representatives and the Senate — and 
became a law when President Washington signed it. 
In this way our federal laws have always been made. 

When this danger to the security of the government 
was passed, there came another from across the sea. 
In 1789, the very year when America had at last 
quieted down to the peace and the orderly government 
of the Constitution, a great revolution broke out in 
France. Gratitude to Frenchmen, who had helped 
them in their own revolution made Americans wish to 
help the French win their liberty from their tyrant 
king and nobles. Their friend and hero Lafayette 
was fighting in Paris, and when the people of Paris 
destroyed the Bastille — the great prison where so 
many good and noble men had suffered unjustly — La- 
fayette sent its key as a remembrance to his friend, 
the great Washington. 

But Washington saw the future. He saw that the 
United States was still weak, like a man slowly re- 
covering his health after a long sickness. And he 
had a dream of peace for America, a peace that could 
never be sure, if a foreign friendship, or the promise 
of a treaty, could drag us into a foreign war. "Twenty 
years' peace," he said, "with such an increase of popu- 
lation and resources as we have a right to expect, 
added to our remote situation from the jarring powers, 
will, in all probability, enable us in a just cause to 
bid defiance to any power on earth." 

The Revolution in France was at its worst in 1793. 
It had turned to madness and all Europe joined to 
crush it. France made a new appeal to America. 
It rang loud and strong across the sea. And to the 
United States came a French minister, Genet, who 

88 



acted as if America had already promised to begiin 
with France a new war against England. It took all 
the power and wisdom and work of Washington to 
save the country from the disaster of war. But the 
danger of it did not pass until after he had begun his 
second term of four years as president. 

During his second term, again it seemed as if 
another war with England was bound to come. Eng- 
land still held the posts in the Northwest that she had 
promised to give up; she hindered our trade; and, 
most insulting to the American flag, she stopped our 
ships and carried off our seamen, claiming that they 
were deserters from the British navy. 

The trouble grew more and more threatening, until 
Washington sent John Jay, the Chief Justice of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, to England to 
settle the trouble between the two countries. In the 
new treaty Jay brought back with him, England 
granted almost everything but the right to search 
American ships. The people furiously opposed such 
a settlement. Even Washington himself was abused. 
But he said that America had gained much, and that 
the treaty was better than war. By his personal in- 
fluence he was finally able to have the Senate accept 
it. For by the Constitution the Senate alone has 
power to approve a treaty or agreement with a foreign 
country. Great prosperity followed. The nation 
grew rapidly in wealth and population, and Washing- 
ton was honored for his wisdom in saving it from 
war. 

THE FAREWELL TO THE NATION 

Gladly would America have made Washington presi- 
dent for a third term, but he firmly refused. Before 
the time came for the election of a new president he 

89 



gave to the people his "Farewell Address" — his last 
great message to them, that still rings through the 
years like a mighty bell, calling Americans to the 
service of their country. 

In this famous address Washington spoke, "as an 
old and affectionate friend," he said, to those who 
were "citizens by birth, or by choice, of a common 
country." Very briefly, these are some of the wise 
and noble thoughts that with such earnestness he 
gave his countrymen : Liberty in America must be 
preserved through union and brotherly love. A nation 
must do right, as a man must do right, and act in good 
faith towards other nations. And in this he improved 
our old proverb by saying: "Honesty is ahvays the best 
policy." Justice and good will must guide the whole 
nation. Everything noble in man demands this. And 
this will give America the glory of setting such an 
example, that nations, yet strangers to liberty, will 
be led to love it and seek it. 

In those days Americans remembered well the 
horrors, the sufferings and the fearful cost of war. 
Yet there was always the danger of war, just as there 
is today. And so in Washington's "Farewell Address," 
solemn was his warning against the spirit of war and 
the passion for armies and military glory. There is 
no space here for his words — space only for a few more 
of the great thoughts, that show his far-seeing wisdom : 
The military passion is the ruin of peace and of 
every kind of happiness. It lays a heavy burden of 
debt on a nation — a. debt that is also ungenerously 
handed on to those yet unborn, their children and their 
children's children. And it is the special enemy of 
liberty. For America's peace and good fortune, she 
is far away from the interests and quarrels of other 
great nations. With them politically she should have 

90 



neither too close friends nor enemies. And so having 
no allies, nor a large army eager for war, nor foreign 
interests that could cause trouble, she would have 
the friendship of all nations, buying and selling to 
them without fear, and building up her commerce. 

No head of an important nation had ever before 
spoken in this way. Statesmen then often acted, and 
sometimes spoke, as they have been known to do even 
in our own day — as if a state were above the law of 
night, and could do things that are wrong for a man 
to do. Washington's wise words have sometimes 
been forgotten in America, but they are well re- 
membered today, and remain the ideal of the nation. 

THE FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY 

At the end of Washington's second term, men knew 
the greatness of his service. As Commander-in-Chief 
of the army he had won the liberties of his country. 
As President he laid deep and strong the foundations 
upon which a mighty nation could be safely and 
solidly built. He established a strong and orderly 
central government. Under him the federal courts 
were organized and federal law created. The money 
affairs of the nation were arranged justly, and help- 
fully to the country. America was made respected 
in other lands. In short, a whole new government 
with its necessary departments had been created and 
given powerful life — a government that has given 
us the United States of today. 

It was nearly eight years from the time of the first 
inauguration. As then, great crowds thronged the 
streets. But it was John Adams who was now to 
take the oath of office. Beside him stood a command- 
ing figure in black velvet. It was George Washing- 

91 



ton. In him the people saw a matchless career ripened 
and perfected, and they crowned it with a devotion 
that was almost worship. In deep silence they fol- 
lowed him, as he left the hall, followed him all the 
way to the President's lodging. He stood facing 
them on the threshold, his gray hair blown by the 
wind, his face grave and somewhat pale, tears filling 
his eyes. He could not speak, but raised his hand in 
parting. The door closed. Not till then was the 
silence broken by the people's surging murmur of 
farewell. 

Once more the peaceful days of loved Mount Ver- 
non were his, but the life was quieter and gentler 
now. The shadows were lengthening and the sunset 
drawing near. Tenderly the love of his dear ones, 
deepening with the years, clung to him. 

Beautiful Nellie Custis, who had loved and ruled 
the great Washington ever since she was first able 
to toddle beside him ; for whom he had bought toys 
and sweets on his way home from the Revolution ; for 
whom, a young girl, he had ordered from London a 
thousand dollar harpsichord on which she loved to 
play and sing for him; to whom, a ''Virginia belle," 
he had written a playful letter of advice about love — 
this fair Nellie was now a woman and was to be mar- 
ried to Washington's own nephew, on his own birth- 
day, February 23, 1799. She teased him to wear at 
her wedding his handsome new embroidered uniform, 
but he shook his head and came instead in the worn 
and faded buff and blue in which he had fought his 
country's battles. The beautiful bride threw her arms 
about his neck and told him that she loved him far 
better in that. 

In these last days Washington was tenderer than 
ever with little children. Every evening at Mount 

92 



Vernon was given to them and called "the children's 
hour." Washington had always easily won their 
love. In the early days of the Revolution, while pas- 
sing through a New England town with his army, 
crowds of children had pressed affectionately upon 
him, calling him : "Father." Deeply touched, he 
turned to one of his generals and said : "The English 
may beat us. It is the chance of war. But behold 
an army which they can never conquer !" 

Summer slipped into autumn and winter was at 
hand. One cold December day, in a high wind and 
snow and hail, Washington rode about his plantation. 
The next day, December 12, 1799, with fatal sickness 
upon him he went out to mark some trees to be cut 
down. He was ill but two days. In his suffering he 
forgot nothing of his old courtesy and constant 
thought of others. In the battle with death he was 
still the fearless soldier, and his last words were a 
murmured " 'Tis well." Quietly he lay; his breathing 
grew easier. Those about his bedside noticed only a 
slight movement of his hand, and without a struggle 
or a sigh his great spirit entered the unknown. 

It was "Light Horse Harry," the son of the "Low- 
land Beauty," who called him "First in war, first in 
peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." His 
fame grew with the years, until for Americans he be- 
came something greater and more perfect than a man 
could be. Always they have called him the "Father 
of his Country." Stories and untold memories gathered 
about his name. Often men have thought of him as a 
soldier; thought of him in his youth fighting gloriously 
for Virginia and his king; then, as a great patriot gen- 
eral, wresting America's liberty from the grasp of a 
tyrant. Even as President he still seemed the soldier, 
as he led the young Republic up the steep heights of 

93 



national honor and power. And America, in pride and 
sorrow, laid upon bis grave a wreath that has never 
withered, a love that can never die. 



94 



THOMAS JEFFERSON* 

THE FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE 

"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God." — ^Jefferson's 
Seal. 

Four things made the United States a Nation: The 
Declaration of Independence and the heroic work of 
th6 Revolution, the adoption of the Constitution and 
the presidency of Washington. But .we were first 
made Americans by the work of Thomas Jefiferson and 
of those who followed him and believed as he did. 
More than anyone else among our patriot fathers, Jef- 
ferson expressed the ideals that we call American. 
He was the eloquent pen of the Revolution. But he 
was far more than that. He believed in human 
equality as few men have ever believed in it. And he 
worked for it with power and success. 

Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence. 
His bold and original thought took the lead in ending 
the system that gave all a man's land on his death to 
his eldest son, a system that had built up the great 
estates of Europe, and prevented the division of land 
among the people. He led the cause of religious free- 
dom, separating the church and the state. His work 
ended the importation of slaves from Africa. He was 
the father of popular education in America. So many 
of his theories and principles are the very foundation 
stones of the Republic, that it has been said : "If Jef- 
ferson was wrong, America is wrong." 

*From a sketch by John Foster Carr. 

95 



From the beginning, the spirit of independence 
flourished on American soil; for none but hardy 
lovers of liberty could face the dangers, hardships and 
toil of the unbroken wilderness, and find a living there. 
Within a dozen years after the first settlers came from 
England, the first Virginia Assembly met, the first 
representative body that ever came together in the 
land that was to be the United States. This assembly 
immediately — it was in 1619 — claimed the right of 
self-government and boldly made it known to Eng- 
land, the mother country, that in crossing the seas 
the colonists had lost none of the rights of Englishmen. 

The first Jefiferson in America, the great grandfather 
of Thomas Jefferson, had come from Wales to Vir- 
ginia, and was a member of this first, free assembly 
of America. In the great grandson the love of liberty 
seemed inherited. It was in the very blood of the 
man. 

THE BOY AND HIS STUDENT DAYS 

Thomas Jefferson was born in Albemarle County, 
Virginia, April 2nd, 1743. Men said that he was 
always fortunate, and his good fortune surely began 
with his father, who, like Washington, had started 
life as a surveyor, and had helped in making the first 
good map that was ever prepared of the colony of 
Virginia. He was a man of might, knew the wilder- 
ness and loved it, and became the unquestioned chief 
of the whole frontier. Among the wild hills of central 
Virginia, with the Indians still nearby, he bought one 
thousand acres of land, and began to hew out a farm 
and a home. And soon to his log cabin he brought 
his bride of seventeen. He was a man of keen intelli- 
gence, and in the days when few people had books, 

96 



and fewer read them, he eagerly read the famous 
volumes that were the help and inspiration of Frank- 
lin. He was an enterprising, hard-working, methodical 
man ; and, growing wheat and tobacco on his highland 
farm, he was so successful that in twenty years he 
could give a large plantation to his youngest son. He 
was still a young man when he was made colonel of 
his county and member of the House of Burgesses. 

Human greatness is sometimes found in a small and 
delicate body, but sometimes, and it was so among 
the founders of our republic, great men are almost 
giants in body. Jefferson, like Washington and Lin- 
coln, was a very tall and very powerful man. And 
as he inherited from his father his great strength, so 
from his father he inherited his fine and bold intelli- 
gence. His first schooling was in the families of two 
clergymen. His father died while he was still a boy, 
and as a last command, directed that his son Thomas 
should receive the best education that the colonies in 
that day could give. And it was a part of that com- 
mand that the exercise necessary for the body's de- 
velopment should not be neglected; for, he said, the 
weakly in body could not be independent in mind. 

By the death of his father, Thomas Jefferson became 
his own master, when he was fourtc-n years old. His 
first free act was to change his school, and he chose 
the best school in the province. After two years of 
work there he was impatient for college. Explaining 
his wishes to his guardian, he said that at college he 
could learn mathematics and get a more "universal 
acquaintance." And so when he was sixteen, he went 
to Williamsburg, to the old college of William and 
Mary. Williamsburg was the capital of the colony, 
a town of no more than one thousand inhabitants, in 
the very heart of the great tobacco country. It was 

97 



a dull and sleepy town, except during' the winter 
season, when the legislature and the great court of 
justice were in session. Then it became a gorgeous 
center of fashion ; the tobacco lords with their 
ladies, their splendid coaches and six, and their 
men servants filled the town. The old Raleigh Tavern 
was ablaze with lights and was gay with parties and 
balls, music and dancing, and the royal governor then 
held his elegant court. 

Here Jefferson spent the next seven years making 
his own the knowledge he longed for, and forming 
the opinions that were to make him a great leader of 
men. For a young man of sixteen he must have had 
extraordinary talent and personal charm, for at once 
three remarkable men became his friends and found 
pleasure in his company. One of these men, his "daily 
companion," he said, was a Dr. William Small, Pro- 
fessor of Mathematics and Philosophy — a bold and 
original thinker, who gave the young Thomas his first 
knowledge of the "system of things in which we are 
placed." From him he learned the habit of looking 
at things carefully and "observingly." And from him, 
too, he caught the enthusiasm for science, that was 
just then a new thing in the world. The second 
friend, with whom he dined once a week, was no less 
a person than the Governor himself — Francis Fauquier, 
a very eloquent gentleman indeed, patron of learning 
and literature, French scholar, musician, a man of 
honor, but also a gay and dashing man of the world, 
fond of wine, cards and gaming. 

His third friend was George Wythe, — "my second 
father," he called him — who because of his lofty char- 
acter and great ability made the deepest impression 
upon the mind and heart of the young Jefferson. He 
was the greatest lawyer of old Virginia, and in his 

98 



office were trained in the law, not only Thomas Jeffer- 
son, but also John Marshall, the famous Chief Justice 
of the Supreme Court of the United States, and Henry- 
Clay, the great statesman. 

When Jefferson entered the college of William and 
Mary, he at once gave himself with all the power of 
his mind and will to gaining knowledge. Mathe- 
matics became his great passion. He seemed always, 
then as in after years, to have carried a rule in his 
pocket, and a box of mathematical instruments always 
went with him, even on short journeys. He took a 
deep interest in architecture. And he was soon toiling 
at his desk fifteen hours a day, developing a genius 
for work — methodical, unending, cheerful. In college 
he read many books : Shakespeare, Homer, the plays 
of Moliere, Don Quixote, and odd volumes of poetry, 
for he loved Ossian, and the old English songs and 
ballads. 

Remembering his father's words about exercise and 
the care of his body, he at first rode horseback, but 
as this took too much time, he soon sent his horses 
home. And it was not long before his only exercise 
on regular working days was a rapid run out of town 
for a mile and back, while it was getting dark enough 
for the candles to be lighted. He was extremely fond 
of music and practised long hours upon the violin. 
And this was to be his constant comfort and recreation 
during later years of work and stress. 

In spite of his hard study, he took an active part in 
social life ; was at first, indeed, thought something of 
a dandy; was often seen with his fiddle and a roll of 
new minuets under his arm going to the Apollo Room 
of the Raleigh Tavern. And there, always a graceful 
dancer, he paid his court to the beauties of Virginia. 

In the elegant society of Williamsburg, at the 

99 



Governor's family table, at the receptions and balls 
of the Raleigh Tavern, he learned the polished man- 
ners that marked him throughout his long life — the 
great courtesy that he always showed to men of every 
class. He was part of a society that was largely idle 
and dissipated — dangerous for a young man of his 
position and talents. But his own strong character 
saved him from the vices about him. He never 
gambled or played at cards. His whole living was 
temperate and strict, 

THE LAW AND THE MOUNTAIN FARM 

Thomas Jefferson was to be a lawyer, it had been 
decided, but he was also to be a farmer, as his fathers 
had been. When he became of age, he inherited his 
mountain farm of Monticello. During the winter he 
was buried in his law books. In the summer he worked 
on his farm, and he worked with enthusiasm. Every 
small part of it interested him. He was filled with 
new ideas, and was forever trying new seeds and 
roots. He rose on summer mornings as soon as he 
could see what o'clock it was, and began his work at 
once. In the winter he rose at five and went to bed 
at nine. 

He lived with his pen almost constantly in his 
fingers. Besides a diary, he kept a great variety of 
books, in which he made daily entries — one for the 
weather, one for the garden, another for the farm, 
others for receipts and expenses. He liked physical 
work. He was so strong that he could lift a thousand 
pounds, and no stronger man was ever known in that 
whole country side, except his own father; yet his 
handwriting was small and clear, and he was skillful 

100 



in everything he did that needed a delicate or dexterous 
touch. 

From the first, large schemes filled the mind of 
Thomas Jefferson. He was always a builder of castles 
in the air. His powerful imagination was as busy 
as his hands, but his vision was often shrewdly useful 
and practical, and his schemes were apt to end in 
success. Flowing through his land was the little river 
Rivanna. When he was twenty-one years old, he 
carried out in triumph a plan to make this navigable 
for twenty-two miles. As his lands grew, he started 
a beautiful home on the top of his mountain, and to 
the building of this he gave twenty-five years. 

He was also poetical and romantic in his nature, 
somewhat of a sentimentalist. A devoted friend 
of these days was Dabney Carr — a gifted and high- 
minded patriot — who married Jefferson's sister. Many 
a happy afternoon the two young men spent on 
the heights of Monticello, talking, dreaming and 
reading their favorite books under the shade of a 
great oak. Nearby these two friends planned that 
their graves should be, and there they now lie side 
by side. 

We have a very clear picture of Jefferson in these 
years. He was extraordinarily tall, six feet two and 
a half inches, but he was well-shaped and "straight as 
a gun barrel — like a fine horse with no surplus flesh." 
His feet, hands and wrists were very large. His 
face and features were angular, his hair red, his skin 
freckled, his eyes light blue. As for looks, people 
were agreed that he was plain in his youth, but they 
said that he was "a very good-looking man in middle 
age, and quite a handsome old man." In his manner 
there was always a shyness and reserve, but there 
was also charm and good humor. Men talked of "the 

101 



Jefferson temper, all music and sunshine." With his 
cheery spirit and unfailing good health, he had so 
great belief in the future, that he seemed almost 
a visionary. He used to say: "I am in the habit of 
turning over the next leaf with hope and, though it 
often fails me, there is still another and another be- 
hind." 

Early in 1767, when Jefferson was twenty-four, he 
was admitted to the bar. He took up his lawyer's 
work with zest, and entered at once into a very pros- 
perous practice. He knew the law as few lawyers 
living knew it. In court he spoke briefly, for his voice 
soon became hoarse and faint. He made many friends 
and no enemies ; the farm made a profit, as well as the 
work of the law, and he soon had a good income. 
During the seven years that he was a lawyer, he 
increased the nineteen hundred acres of land, that had 
been received from his father, to five thousand. 

A new happiness crowned all this good fortune. 
One evening, early in January, 1773, while the flush 
of sunset was still in the sky, Thomas Jefferson and 
his bride rode their horses through deep snow up the 
sides of the mountain to the new home that was rising 
on its summit. The bride was a young and childless 
widow, Martha Skelton, a lady gracious and sweet, and 
for her day unusually well educated. She, too, cared 
for fine books and for music; and while she played 
the spinnet, he would accompany her on the fiddle, 
and their voices would mingle in singing the beautiful 
old ballads that he loved so well. 

With new energy now work on the great house was 
pushed forward. Jefferson was architect, builder and 
landscape gardener. Every part of the plan was his. 
Nearly all of the materials — ^brick and timbers, even 
nails — were made on his own place by the negro slaves, 

102 



that he and his father had trained till they were expert 
workmen, carpenters and smiths. His wife had 
brought him forty thousand acres of land for her 
dowry, and more and more ambitious grew his farm- 
ing plans. Through Philip Mazzei, afterwards the 
Italian enthusiast in the cause of American liberty, he 
secured a little colony of Italians for his gardeners. 
With them he hoped to make Albemarle County the 
vineyard of Virginia. Through Mazzei, too, he ob- 
tained vines, nuts, melons, many new varieties of fruits 
and vegetables from Italy. Their seeds and plants he 
distributed broadcast as far south as Georgia. He 
persuaded Alberti, the violinist, to come to Monticello 
to live. 

This happy life was without a cloud for two years. 
Then Dabney Carr died, and Jefferson took the widow, 
his sister, with her family, into his home. Her six 
small children he brought up with his own two little 
girls, delighting in teaching them. 

Thomas Jefferson was now a man skilled in many 
different kinds of knowledge, and a man of many 
accomplishments. He was a learned lawyer. Per- 
haps no one else in America knew the science of agri- 
culture so well. He was something of a surgeon ; he 
could sew up a bad wound, or set a broken leg. He 
was a dead shot with a gun. Like his father, he could 
survey an estate ; but he could also design a house, 
calculate an eclipse, break a horse, dance a minuet, play 
the violin. And he knew well Greek, Latin, Spanish, 
Italian and French. 

AS PATRIOT MAKING READY THE 
REVOLUTION 

Meantime, Jefferson had been taking a deeper and 
deeper interest in public affairs. The passing of the 

103 



Stamp Act had proved the turning point in his career. 
Before this it had been his dream to go to Europe, and 
to see the famous cities and the life of the Old World. 
But after England's attack on the liberties of America, 
there was no further talk of Europe for him. He had 
suddenly become the patriot. When Patrick Henry 
made his great speech, passionately denouncing the 
Stamp Act and warning the English king, Jefiferson 
stood thrilled, listening at the door of the House of 
Burgesses. Later, in 1769, when he was twenty-six 
years old, he became a candidate for the House of 
Burgesses himself. Following the old custom of Vir- 
ginia, he went to call upon the voters in person, 
attended the polls, with old-fashioned hospitality 
ofifered lunch and punch to the electors, and bowed 
low every time his name was voted for. He won his 
election, and so began his great political career of forty 
years. 

Jefiferson entered the House at the beginning of 
stormy times. The Stamp Act had been repealed, but 
England now proposed new taxes. Jefferson was 
chosen by his Committee to prepare the reply of Vir- 
ginia. His first draft was accepted ; his second 
rejected. It was far too brief, they said ; and brief it 
certainly was, for Jefferson made it a rule never to 
use two words where one would do. Yet the Bur- 
gesses of Virginia declared boldly against taxation 
without representation. The royal governor, no 
longer the clever and good humored Fauquier, dis- 
solved the House, and at once eighty-eight members 
of it met in the Apollo Room of Raleigh Tavern, and 
there signed an agreement to buy no English goods 
that they could possibly do without, and to recommend 
their act to the people of Virginia. Among these men 

104 



were George Washington, Patrick Henry, Richard 
Henry Lee, and Thomas Jefferson. 

Massachusetts and Virginia always were the leaders 
in the great struggle for liberty, and Massachusetts 
was the first to suffer. In the Boston Massacre, in 1770, 
the blood of her citizens was first shed by British 
troops. In 1773, to punish the independent colonists 
for the daring midnight raid of the "Boston Tea 
Party," Parliament had closed the port of Boston, 
appointed a military governor for Massachusetts, and 
given orders that British troops should be quartered 
upon the people. 

It was plain to all that war was now near, and the 
colonies were not prepared for war. They had separ- 
ate governments, but no central representative body 
of any kind, nor any system of communicating with 
one another. Yet their rights could only be won by 
united action, and so it was that early in 1773 a little 
group of Virginia patriots began to meet privately. 
They agreed that a Committee of Correspondence 
should be formed in Virginia, and that the other 
colonies should be asked to appoint committees of the 
same sort, so that they could find some way of acting 
together. Jefferson wrote out the plan. It was 
adopted by the House of Burgesses, and this was the 
first practical step taken for the preparation of the 
Revolution. It succeeded so well that almost every 
county and village in the colonies came to have its 
own committees, and in the end it was said that it 
was these committees that organized the Revolution. 
The House of Burgesses soon ordered the Virginia 
Committee of Correspondence to propose to other 
committees, everywhere, the meeting of an annual 
congress of deputies from all the colonies. The other 
colonies were quick to approve this proposal, and 

105 



within another year Virginia held a convention to 
elect her delegates to the first Continental Congress. 

It was for this convention, in the summer of 1774, 
that Jefferson wrote an account of the wrongs done 
the colonies by Great Britain. This bravely declared 
that the country belonged to those who had settled 
it. It declared, too, that the right of self-government 
is a right natural to all men, and that, therefore Par- 
liament had no authority to make laws for America. 
It gave fearless support to Massachusetts, threatened 
resistance to the English law, and showed the inde- 
pendent spirit of America by calling the colonies 
"states." Until he wrote this celebrated paper, Jeffer- 
son had been only a provincial lawyer. As soon as it 
was published he was famous. It was printed in 
England as well as in America. But in London it 
caused Jefferson's name to be put on the list of those 
who were to be tried for treason. 

The next spring, when Patrick Henry made his 
fiery speech that called all the colonies to arms, a 
committee was appointed to prepare Virginia for war. 
Again the old friends were found together, serving 
their country: George Washington, Patrick Henry, 
Richard Henry Lee, and Thomas Jefferson, who had 
now for the cause of liberty, entirely given up his 
work as a lawyer. All Virginia was soon busy arming 
and drilling her able-bodied men. 

Jefferson was at once elected member of the Con- 
tinental Congress, and when there came the proposal 
from Lord North, England's Prime Minister, to change 
the method of collecting the taxes, again the help of 
his pen was asked to prepare Virginia's reply. With 
this duly signed and certified, he set out from Wil- 
liamsburg in his one horse chaise, and arrived in 
Philadelpha to take his place in Congress on the very 

106 



day Washington was made Commander-in-Chief of 
the American army. In Congress he spoke little, far 
less than either Washington or Franklin, who, he 
afterwards said, never spoke at all, except on the most 
important questions, and then never for more than ten 
minutes at a time. But in private talk with the mem- 
bers, in committee meetings, by his wide and accurate 
knowledge, by his prompt answers to questions and 
his unfailing good judgement, he soon made a deep 
impression upon the whole Congress. And now for 
the Continental Congress he was asked to prepare a 
reply to Lord North. 

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 

The autumn of 1775 found Jefiferson back in Virginia 
working heart and soul, collecting supplies for the 
relief of Boston, gathering military stores. In the 
month of May following, in the great year of 1776, 
the Virginia Convention met and instructed its dele- 
gates to urge Congress to "declare the United Colonies 
free and independent states," and on the 29th of June, 
while Congress was discussing the question, Virginia 
set the example for the country, declared herself inde- 
pendent, and Patrick Henry was at once elected her 
first governor. 

During these days, Richard Henry Lee had already 
obeyed the instructions of the Virginia Convention, 
and had proposed in Congress that the colonies de- 
clare themselves "free and independent states." John 
Adams of Massachusetts seconded this proposal, and 
JeflFerson was named head of a committee of five to 
draw up the declaration. For seven years he had 
been preparing himself for the writing of this great 
paper, the Declaration of Independence. Over and 

107 



over again in clear and burning phrases he had tqld 
the history of America's wrongs. No one else had so 
full a knowledge of the facts and of the law. And 
now in one great paper, that Congress accepted with 
very slight changes, he set forth the story anew, with 
the resolve of the nation to be free. When Congress 
adopted the Declaration on the Fourth of July, 1776, 
it rallied the peoples of America into one earnest body 
of patriots, and proclaimed to the world of that day, 
and to the peoples of all coming time, the principles 
on which this Republic is founded. 

The whole country took joy and strength from the 
great Declaration. The struggle for full independence 
at once began. There could now be no other end to 
the conflict that England had started, and that the 
great Chatham had called the "most accursed, wicked, 
barbarous, cruel, unjust and diabolical war." On that 
very night of July 4th, the leaden statue of George III, 
that had stood proudly on its pedestal in Bowling 
Green, New York, was pulled down by a crowd of 
patriots to be melted into bullets for America's guns. 

BUILDING A STATE 

The greatest experiment of democracy in the history 
of the world was now to be tried. But before there 
could exist a well-organized nation, states organized 
strongly and well needed first to exist. The people 
had been devoted to England and to the government 
of England. They had accepted the Monarchy with 
affection. Even Jefferson, like Franklin and Wash- 
ington, had preferred a just union with Britain to 
independence. But, he had also said that "rather than 
submit to the injustice of King and Parliament he 
would lend his hand to sink Great Britain in the ocean." 

108 



Injustice at last broke the old bonds of attachment. 
Men everywhere were ready for the change ; for, as 
Jefferson wrote Franklin, they "seemed to have laid 
aside the Monarchical and taken up the Republican 
Government, with as much ease as would have 
attended their throwing off an old, and putting on a 
new, suit of clothes." 

What a wonderful undertaking it was ! "Three 
millions of people," as John Adams said, "deliberately 
choosing their government and institutions !" Upon 
the work of creating a new government and reforming 
the laws, Jefiferson's heart was eagerly set. He was 
re-elected to Congress, but he resigned his seat. He 
was appointed Commissioner with Franklin to repre- 
sent the United States at Paris, but he declined to go. 
Back to Virginia he went to this work of building a 
state, while Washington, with his little army, was 
rapidly retreating before the British in New Jersey 
and the whole country was beginning its life and death 
struggle with England. It was the good fortune of 
Virginia that time was now allowed for this work, for 
not till the end of the war did England invade that 
state. 

To make the government and the laws of Virginia 
agree, as Jefferson wished, with "reason and good 
sense," meant nothing less than building a democracy 
in the most aristocratic of the old colonies; because in 
Virginia, the laws, customs and social life were, of all 
America, most like those of monarchical England. And 
Jefferson would have nothing but pure democracy, the 
rights of the people recognized in the government of 
the land. He was for a long time the only American 
who completely trusted the mass of the people, and 
who believed that they were ready for self-govern- 
ment. He was their leader, and, as it has been 

109 



finely said, "he led the future." He was a member 
of the Committee of the Virginia Assembly that took 
the work in charge. For chief helpers he had Patrick 
Henry, the Governor of the state, George Wythe, 
his old friend, the great lawyer and liberal, and James 
Madison, who, like Jefferson, was also many years 
later to serve as President of the United States. 

With tireless patience and enthusiasm Jefferson 
pressed on with this great work he had taken in hand. 
The first thing that needed to be changed was the 
English law of holding land. The eldest son had 
always, and without exception, inherited it, and debts 
could not touch it. One week from the day Jefferson 
took his seat in the Virginia legislature, he intro- 
duced a bill abolishing this whole system. After a 
bitter three weeks' fight, democracy won the battle. 
Land henceforth might be sold or left by a man's 
will as he chose. This prevented the building up of 
large estates and gave all the people the right of 
owning land. The old families that held great 
estates never forgave Jefferson for this courageous 
work of his, and for the first time in his life this 
friendly man had bitter enemies. 

Other great reforms were now to follow this be- 
ginning. The Church of England was the church 
recognized by the law of Virginia and supported by 
the taxes of the colony. Here was a more difficult 
matter. Yet Jefferson succeeded at once in stopping 
the payment of taxes for its support. And at the 
same time he obtained a new law permitting a man 
to worship God according to his conscience, without 
the danger of fine and imprisonment. But it took 
nine years of hard work before all of Jefferson's plan 
was adopted, establishing in Virginia complete free- 
dom of religion. 

110 



Other very important changes were made. The 
law became more merciful towards criminals. Im- 
prisonment for debt and cruel and unusual punishments 
were no longer permitted. Now only for murder 
and treason was death made the penalty. In the old 
colony of Virginia, a foreigner had to wait fourteen 
years before he could become a citizen. Now he could 
have citizenship in two years, and his young children 
became citizens when they were of full age. This 
liberal law in many of its parts was afterwards taken 
as the basis of our United States law of today. 

It was in these days, and by Jefiferson's proposal, 
that the capital of Virginia was changed from Wil- 
liamsburg to Richmond. This convenient way of 
placing the capital in the geographical centre of the 
land has since been generally followed by nearly 
every new state. Then came laws creating the differ- 
ent courts in Virginia; and then, many others that, 
like those that have been mentioned, were important 
not only for establishing democracy in Virginia, but 
also for serving afterwards as model laws for the 
other states. 

But two reforms upon which Jefferson's heart was 
most earnestly set were to fail entirely. He planned 
a complete system of state education, beginning with 
the simplest schools, teaching reading, writing and 
arithmetic, and including a free state university and 
a state library. He argued so well for this plan, that 
the House of Delegates enthusiastically voted its 
approval. But the counties of Virginia would not 
tax themselves to carry out the proposal ; and only 
in the later years of his life was Jefferson able to 
return to the educational work that was so dear to 
him. 

The other reform for which Jefferson labored so 

111 



faithfully and hard, was a law to give freedom to all 
who should thenceforth be born in slavery. When 
he was first elected to the House of Burgesses in 
1769, he had urged his first plea for the negro. This 
was an attempt to secure a law that would enable 
slave-owners to free their slaves, if they wished to do 
so, for in Virginia this could not be done without 
sending them out of the state. He failed now as he 
had failed eight years before, but he did succeed in 
having a law passed forbidding the further impor- 
tation of slaves into Virginia. 

To this great work of political and social reform, 
Jefferson gave himself for more than two years. His 
industry was intense. "Few men ever had so con- 
suming a fire of energy beneath so serene a surface." 
The book of the laws of Virginia was finished, and 
at the same time drafts of one hundred and eight 
new laws were prepared that furnished the legislature 
subject for debate and action for over eight years. 
While he toiled so quietly and so rapidly at this 
immense task, his country was plunged in a desperate 
struggle. The hurry, excitement, agony of the 
Revolution were all about him. Yet methodically 
he still recorded daily the changes in the weather, 
noted the planting, growth and ripening of the crops, 
read Homer for his solace, and in his room, late at 
night and at sunrise, softly played his violin. 

IN THE GOVERNOR'S CHAIR AND IN 
CONGRESS 

Then in the year of 1779, in the darkest days of 
the Revolution, Thomas Jefferson became governor 
of the State of Virginia, succeeding Patrick Henry. 
For the stern work that faced him, a rough and 

112 



powerful soldier was needed, and Jefferson was a 
man of peace. He was a lawyer and political phil- 
osopher, as someone has said, "with a talent for 
music, a taste for art, a love of science, literature 
and gardening." In other words, Jefferson was not 
fitted by nature for the desperate business before him, 
yet he faced his task with full courage and, in spite of 
much criticism, with large success. 

Virginia now, as Jefferson wrote Washington, like 
her sister states of the North and South, suffered 
from "the fatal want of men and arms." The country 
was searched, and almost in vain, for powder, horses, 
grain. His own estate was stripped of all useful 
supplies. The treasury was empty. As the war went 
on, the paper money of Congress was worth less and 
less. By the end of Jefferson's term his salary, that 
should have amounted to more than $22,000, would 
buy only a new saddle. Philip Mazzei, the enthusiast 
for liberty, who had translated the Declaration of 
Independence into Italian for the inspiration of his 
countrymen, went, at his own expense, on a vain trip 
to borrow £900,000 ($4,500,000) from the Duke of 
Tuscany, brother of Marie Antoinette, the ill fated 
queen of France. 

And now Virginia was invaded. The traitor, Bene- 
dict Arnold, brought British troops up the river James. 
The capital of the State was plundered, and early in 
that same year, 1781, Cornwallis marched into Vir- 
ginia from the South. When Jefferson, at Monticello, 
heard that the enemy was coming he sent his horse 
to the blacksmith's to be shod, and then sat down to 
sort and arrange his papers. He galloped away only 
five minutes before the redcoats arrived. Two of 
his slaves were hiding his silver under the floor as the 
British entered. Down went the trap door, imprison- 

113 



ing one of the negroes, the faithful Caesar. Upon 
the breast of the other a soldier struck a pistol and 
threatened to kill him unless he would tell which 
way his master had gone. "Fire away then," 
answered the brave black. 

Death, pillage, complete exhaustion were upon Vir- 
ginia when Lord Cornwallis surrendered in October. 
Monticello had suffered severely. Fences and barns 
were burned, negroes carried off with the cattle, the 
crops destroyed. Jefferson refused to serve again 
as governor. The frail health of his wife gave way 
under the terrible strain, and within the year she died. 
For the only time in his life, the calm and well-poised 
spirit of Jefferson was broken. He was led from the 
room tottering to his library, where he fell in a faint. 
For weeks he was ill and then succeeded a long period 
of stupor, from which nothing could rouse him. 

On his recovery Jefferson buried himself in the work 
of his farm, and then, yielding to the advice of his 
friends, accepted an election to Congress, where he was 
appointed chairman of many important committees. 
He signed the treaty of peace with Great Britain. 
From his hands Congress accepted the grant of the 
great western lands that belonged to Virginia, which 
until then had been a state of vast extent. For it 
stretched beyond the boundaries of today, westward to 
the Mississippi River and far to the north. It included 
West Virginia and Kentucky, and a large part of the 
present states of Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. All this 
great territory was now given over to the Federal 
government, in time to be made into other independent 
states. 

In this Congress Jefferson took the leading part 
in discussing a plan for a national currency. He sug- 
gested the dollar as the unit of value, and so con- 

114 



vincing-ly were his reasons given that his proposal 
was adopted, and he has ever since been called the 
"father of the American dollar." He also suggested 
our ten dollar gold piece, our silver dime and the 
copper cent. He urged, but failed to have passed, 
a plan for the convenient decimal system of weights 
and measures, which has now been adopted by all 
the civilized nations of the world, except the United 
States, Russia and Great Britain. Here, again, he 
returned to the cause that was ever close to his heart, 
the abolition of slavery, now proposing that it should 
be forbidden in the new territories after 1800. If he 
had succeeded then, the country would probably have 
been saved the long and bitter struggle that ended 
in the Civil War. But his bill was lost by a single 
vote. 

MINISTER TO FRANCE 

Three times Jefferson had been appointed to a 
foreign mission, and three times he had declined. A 
fourth appointment he now accepted, and there began 
a new and useful service to his country — a service 
filled with pleasure and interest to himself. In May, 
1784 he was appointed by Congress, Minister Pleni- 
potentiary to act with Dr. Franklin and John Adams 
in securing treaties of commerce with the nations 
of Europe. Only "old Frederick of Prussia," as Jef- 
ferson called him, agreed to make such a treaty. The 
next year Franklin was granted leave by Congress to 
return home; Mr. Adams became Minister to Eng- 
land ; and Thomas Jefferson remained in Paris as 
Minister of the United States to France. 

Matters of commerce had an important part in 
Jefferson's work as Minister. He had the difficult 
task also of meeting the many creditors of the United 

115 



States, making them such promises as he could. But 
Jefferson's main work as Minister was that of making 
America known to the French, and of making the 
best things of France known to America. From his boy- 
hood he had known the literature and history of the 
French. He now was happy in the society of the 
greatest public men, the greatest philosophers, scien- 
tists and writers of France. He was fond of the 
culture of the Old World. He loved the art, the 
architecture, and above all, the music of Paris. He 
liked its gayety and the good manners of its people, 
among whom you might, he said, "pass a life without 
encountering a single rudeness." 

America was then without art or literature and, 
except for Franklin, almost without science. So he 
wished his own country to have every advantage 
that could come from knowledge of the progress of 
Europe. The four American colleges, Yale, Harvard, 
Philadelphia, and his own college of William and 
Mary, he kept informed of new discoveries and in- 
ventions. For these colleges and for his friends at 
home, he bought the important new books. A famil- 
iar sight on sunny afternoons was his tall form bend- 
ing over the book-stalls, where he picked up hundreds 
of prizes in rare and valuable volumes. He sent the 
great sculptor Houdon to America to make the bust 
of Washington, that has since become so famous. 
He was eager to see beautiful public buildings in his 
beloved home land, and so in Paris he secured new 
designs for the capitol at Richmond. He studied the 
systems of canals that were common in Europe. It 
was he who sent to America the first news of Watt's 
wonderful invention, the steam engine, that, he wrote, 
"with a peck and a half of coal performs as much work 
as a horse in a day." 

116 



And he never forgot the needs of American farmers. 
By ahnost every ship packages of seeds and roots 
went to his friends at home. At Turin he filled the 
pockets both of his coat and of his greatcoat with 
the rice of Lombardy, sent it at once to South Caro- 
lina, and from that very seed, we are told, the best 
rice comes, that is now grown in our country. 

But his chief interest was in the social and political 
life of men. He visited England and Holland, travel- 
led in Germany and Italy, toured France widely, 
going about much on foot. He studied the life of the 
peasants, and he studied what he saw with such great 
care, that he said: "Some take me to be a fool." 
France was then approaching the Revolution, and a 
marvellous moral change was rapidly coming over 
the nation. Among educated people there was great 
enthusiasm for the new ideas of a government based 
on liberty and equality. 

But Jefferson still had before his eyes the terrific 
oppressions of the old system of government under 
Louis XVI and his nobles. He told Madison: "This 
is a government of wolves over sheep." And he 
wrote Washington : "There is not a crowned head in 
Europe whose talents or merits would entitle him to 
be elected a vestryman in America." He begged 
Lafayette to go and use his eyes : "Ferret the people 
out of their hovels as I have done; look into their 
kettles ; eat their bread ; loll on their beds in pretense 
of resting yourself, but in fact, to find if they are 
soft. You will feel a sublime pleasure in the course 
of the investigation ; and a sublime one, hereafter, 
when you shall be able to apply your knowledge to 
the softening of their beds, or the throwing of a mor- 
sel of meat into their kettle of vegetables." 

The more he knew the living conditions of the 

117 



peasants of Europe, the more confirmed he became 
in his own broad and generous democracy. "Travel- 
ling in Europe," he wrote Madison, "will make you 
adore your own country. My God ! How little do 
my countrymen know what precious blessings they 
are in possession of and which no other people on 
earth enjoy." 

When Jefferson first reached France he was al- 
ready known as the greatest living preacher of the 
rights of man. His belief in these rights had not 
come from the French philosophers, but he was heart 
and soul in sympathy with the new spirit that was 
growing up in France, with what he called "the fervor 
of national rights and zeal for reformation." And 
so to consult him, and to learn of him, came the 
progressive men of France. Around his hospitable 
table they gathered and planned ambitiously for the 
society of the future. He went every day to hear the 
debates in the National Assembly, and was invited 
to assist in drafting a constitution for France. No 
one yet dreamed that the monarchy was in danger, 
and so even the king's minister asked Jefferson to 
give his advice freely. The plan he urged was that 
King Louis should place himself at the head of the 
Revolution, and give a charter of liberties to his 
people that would change France to a constitutional 
monarchy. But his advice was rejected. Jefferson 
himself saw the destruction of the old prison of the 
Bastille, and within four years Louis XVI was be- 
headed on the guillotine. 

Jefferson always feared for America a return to 
the principles of an aristocracy, if not of a monarchy. 
What he saw in France renewed this fear, and he 
wrote George Wythe: "Preach a crusade against 
ignorance; establish and improve the law for edu- 

118 



eating the common people. Let our countrymen 
know that the people alone can protect us against 
these evils; and that the tax which will be paid for 
education is not more than the thousandth part of 
what will be paid to kings and nobles, who will rise 
up among us, if we leave the people in ignorance." 

For Jefferson these were very happy years in France. 
A story of his life in Paris shows the strength there 
was in the calm and gentle character of the man. On 
one of the long walks that he was fond of taking in 
the beautiful suburbs of the city, he fell and broke 
his wrist. But he said nothing of his hurt to the 
friend who was with him, and that very night he began 
to learn to write with his left hand, making out his 
daily accounts, according to his unchanging habit. 
The bone was poorly set and he was never again 
able to play his violin. In 1789, Jefferson asked for a 
leave of absence, intending to return to his beloved 
Paris within a few months. 

A "REPUBLICAN" SECRETARY OF STATE 

While Thomas Jefferson had been in France, the 
Constitutional Convention had been held, the Con- 
stitution adopted, Washington had been elected presi- 
dent and was now organizing the new government. 
The Constitution had created a strong federal author- 
ity and had given it the necessary power over the 
states, as well as control of all foreign relations and 
national business. We think of the Constitution to- 
day as the greatest and most successful written plan 
for governing men that has ever been formed in the 
history of the world. But in the first years after 
it was adopted many thought of it as an experiment, 
and it received much criticism. Jefferson pointed out 

119 



what he thought its defects. Many of his fears have 
proved groundless, but some of us still regret, as he 
did, that it does not forbid a standing army and mon- 
opolies of every kind, and that it does not prevent presi- 
dents succeeding themselves indefinitely. But what- 
ever its defects might be, it was soon proved that the 
Constitution was a very satisfactory "working plan" 
for our government. It only lacked one thing. It couid 
not provide the spirit, which has given the govern- 
ment the name of American. That depended upon 
the men who were to make it a living force in the 
world. 

For laying the foundation of the new nation, Wash- 
ington was the one man needed. There are few great 
men in history who were so resolute and strong in 
character as he, and who were yet so modest and 
distrustful of their own powers, their own intelligence. 
Before he made up his mind on any important ques- 
tion, he always wished to hear it very carefully dis- 
cussed by the best informed men. And so his de- 
cisions were based on the most accurate knowledge 
available. He was by nature conservative, and be- 
lieved that for a new and untried nation the old ways 
could not too suddenly be given up. He even insisted 
on keeping the dignified ceremony and etiquette of 
the governments of the Old World. 

When Jefferson reached home in September 1789, 
he had fully expected to return promptly to France 
to his old post as Minister, but at Washington's 
earnest request he became Secretary of State in the 
new government. This meant a battle of ideas. We 
have seen how his democratic principles had become 
stronger in Europe. Great were his surprise and 
shame on his return to find that the pomp of Europe 
had invaded America. The President opened Congress 

120 



in state as the King- of England opened Parliament. 
Court receptions and levees were held. Even a court 
circular was published. Many of his old friends were 
drifting towards aristocratic, if not monarchical ideas. 
So good a patriot as John Adams favored the English 
constitution and a senate chosen for a long term or 
for life. Even in the President's Cabinet — it then had 
only four members, where it now has ten — there was 
serious distrust of democracy. The great Alexander 
Hamilton, the able Secretary of the Treasury, the 
leader and the organizing and constructive genius of 
the Cabinet, whose wisdom had insisted on the pay- 
ment of all the country's debts, had no great belief 
in the permanence of the Republic. He had accepted 
the Constitution as a compromise. He seemed to 
think men incapable of self-government, and wished 
to give the vote only to those who owned property. 
He delighted in the army and in military display. 
His ideas and theories of government were widely 
accepted. If he had had his way, the work of the 
Revolution would have been in vain. America would 
have had in a new form the Old World system — 
militarism, and a part of the people making laws for 
the whole people. 

So into Washington's cabinet came Jefiferson, the 
ardent republican, who saw, as no one else did, the 
need and the opportunity of democracy. And, as 
no one else did, he also saw the coming- development 
of popular government and popular education, the 
things that are still working today to make this world 
a better place to live in. 

It was Washington's wisdom that brought Jef- 
ferson into the Cabinet at the very time when the 
country needed spirit and form given to its institutions. 
For Washington, Jefferson had "sincere and honest 

121 



reverence." And it was Washington's strong char- 
acter and common sense that governed the struggle 
that immediately began between Jefferson and Hamil- 
ton — Hamilton, with his wonderful business ability; — 
Jefferson, who had the power to make the govern- 
ment one with the people. In the building of the 
nation some things were accepted, some were re- 
jected from each of these great men. Around them 
two political parties grew that had not existed befiore. 
Names and principles of these parties have changed 
during the years, and while Jefferson is considered the 
founder of the present Democratic party, he was also 
the first to proclaim the principle that gave birth to 
the present Republican party in the struggle over 
slavery in 1854: — that the United States government 
could and should forbid slavery in all the national 
territories. From the contests and differences of 
opinion between our two great political parties, the 
country decides just as in Jefferson's day, trying to 
take the best of each. 

When Jefferson, returning from France, first ap- 
peared in New York, which was then the capital of 
the United States — the Government was moved to 
Philadelphia the next year, in 1790 — some laughed 
and some were shocked at the red Paris waistcoat and 
breeches he wore. He was so filled with the French 
spirit, that Patrick Henry called him in jest a man 
who "had even abjured his native victuals." 

But no one could doubt Jefferson's intense Ameri- 
canism. Democracy was almost a religion with him. 
He believed in the great mass of the people and loved 
and trusted them. His ideal of popular government 
was exactly expressed by Lincoln's great words: "A 
government of the people, by the people and for the 
people." Quietly talking and writing, he preached 

122 



his "republican" principles, as they were called, always 
gaining new power to give them force. 

What were these "republican" principles of his? 
First of all, he believed in simple human equality. He 
believed that birth, refinement, education, wealth give 
a man no right to govern others without their con- 
sent. The questions of government, for him were 
almost entirely questions of right and wrong, where 
the "uprightness of a decision" would be more im- 
portant than the "rightness" of it. He had once 
said that a plowman would decide a moral question 
"often better" than a professor. He believed so 
strongly in the power of public opinion that he "pre- 
ferred newspapers without a government to a govern- 
ment without newspapers." He wanted "all things 
under the control of the common sense of the people." 
The errors they could make he called "honest, solitary 
and short-lived." And for these errors education 
would always be a complete remedy. He had re- 
spect for men and his strong democratic faith never 
failed, even when they were foolish, or dishonest or 
treacherous. 

Jefferson's idea of government was that it should 
be made just as simple and inexpensive as possible. 
"The best government is that which governs least." 
It should be limited to "a few plain duties performed 
by a few servants." He would have few taxes and 
strongly opposed piling up debts for other generations 
to pay; for "the dead should have no dominion over 
the earth." He wished to give the widest opportunity 
to the masses, but he would have no special laws, privi- 
leges or favors for the separate classes of men. Jef- 
ferson, perhaps even more than Washington, dreaded 
the military spirit. Filled with ideals of peace, he 
wished to see us friends with all the nations of earth. 

123 



Four years he served as Secretary of State. Under 
Washington the g-overnment was constantly gaining 
in power and strength, and in his new post Jefferson 
rendered important service. In the war between Eng- 
land and France, he, the first friend of France in 
America, strengthened the hands of Washington, and 
did much to save the country from taking the side 
of France and starting a new war with England. But 
throughout these years his greatest work was given 
to the battle against Hamilton and those who held 
the aristocratic ideas of Hamilton. Into this unending 
and bitter, but winning fight, he who had hated debate 
and contests of every kind, threw his whole soul, 
until he was exhausted with the struggle. 

THE RETURN TO MONTICELLO 

Jefferson at length resolved to have done wlith 
public life forever, and to return to Monticello. This 
was necessary for another reason, for the losses of 
the Revolution and his entire neglect of his personal 
interests during the many years he was serving his 
country, had burdened him with debt. He went back 
to his old home rejoicing, for a time forgot political 
matters entirely, and gave all his energy to finishing 
the building of his house and to the development of 
his large estates. To the work of his farm he 
brought many new ideas that he had gathered abroad 
— new methods to be tried, experiments to be made, 
all for the benefit of mankind, and especially, of his 
own countrymen. French chestnuts and olives and 
Alpine strawberries were planted. He introduced 
better breeding animals, sheep and hogs. 

He was ceaselessly active in many other ways. He 
had a genius for mechanics always. Like many of 

134 



our great Americans, he delighted in working with his 
hands, and in his shop made many useful inventions. 
Among such things, made at different times, were 
a folding chair, the revolving chair now seen in every 
office, the folding top that we use on our carriages. 
While he was living in France, with the help of his 
geometry, he had fashioned an improved plow. He 
now studied to improve the machinery used on his 
farm, he gave his mind tb chemistry, whose great possi- 
bilities he saw, and made many original and daring 
suggestions in science and the mechanic arts. He 
still lived "with his pen in hand," keeping many books, 
and adding to his other activities, scientific studies 
on the power of the moon over the weather, the circles 
about the moon, the natural history of the turkey. 
And at this time we hear of his making vocabularies 
of over thirty Indian dialects. His friends agreed : 
"He is the most industrious person I ever knew." 

Everything he did was still done in a tranquil and 
happy spirit ; the old "Jefferson temper" remained un- 
changed, and as he rode over the country on horse- 
back, when he was not talking to some one, he was 
always humming or singing to himself. But, indus- 
trious as he was, he had lost the ability to make 
money. The old debts were not reduced and new 
ones accumulated. 

AS VICE PRESIDENT 

With his intense interest in the progress of the 
developing nation, Thomas Jefferson soon found that 
it was impossible not to concern himself with the 
problems and dangers of the Republic. His leader- 
ship was needed, and he was soon writing eager letters 
and seeing and talking to influential men, urging the 

125 



cause of democracy. He had inspired his countrymen 
by his ideals, and the poHtical party that he had 
founded had grown so rapidly in power, that, when 
the presidential election of 1796 approached, he was 
placed in nomination for the presidency. He lost 
the election to John Adams by only two votes in the 
electoral college. According to the old method of 
election, this made him Vice President. It was a 
position he was glad to have, for it was one of dignity 
and leisure and paid a good salary, which at that time 
he greatly needed. 

He had just been elected President of the Philoso- 
phical Society, so when he left Monticello for Phila- 
delphia, as his negro coachman, Jupiter, cracked the 
whip, and he drove off in his heavy, old chaise, he 
had the bones of a mastodon that had lately been 
unearthed, under his seat, and in his trunk a little 
book of parliamentary law, written in his student days 
at Williamsburg. He left his chaise, as he usually 
did, just as soon as he could meet a public coach. 
And as he disliked to have people wait on him, dis- 
liked even to be called "mister" or "esquire," so he 
avoided ceremonies wherever possible. He had re- 
quested that no reception be given him on his arrival 
in Philadelphia. But his friends would not be denied 
their pleasure, and he was welcomed by a company of 
artillery. A salute of sixteen rounds was fired from 
two twelve-pounder guns, and a flag was displayed, 
bearing the words : "Jefiferson, the Friend of the 
People." 

As the Vice President is also the presiding officer 
of the Senate, for his new duties Jefferson rewrote his 
little Manual to Parliamentary Practice and it became 
a book of great use for many years. He laid out the 
city of Washington to which the government was to 

126 



move in 1800, planning it according to the design of 
his beloved college town of Williamsburg. During 
his Vice Presidency, because of their difference of 
ideas, a coldness interrupted for a time his old friend- 
ship with John Adams, the new President. There 
came again a crisis in foreign affairs, and he used all 
his great influence to avoid a war with France. But 
always his first interest was saving his own country 
to the principles of democracy. In 1798 Congress 
had passed the Alien and Sedition Laws. These 
gave the President the power to banish from the 
country without trial any foreigner of whom he had 
suspicion, and punished with fine and imprisonment 
any spoken or printed attack on Congress or upon 
the President. Jefferson opposed both these laws 
that were a violation of the Constitution, for they 
abolished trial by jury and freedom of speech and 
press. The indignation of the country was roused, 
and the cause of democracy gained new strength. 

"A CONSERVATIVE REFORMER" 
AS PRESIDENT 

The presidential election of 1800 was long and bit- 
terly fought, and it was finally given to Thomas 
Jefferson. It was the first inauguration in the city 
of Washington, the final and permanent capital, where 
the nation at last became conscious of its own exist- 
ence and power. John Adams, the second President, 
had gone to the ceremony in Philadelphia in a coach 
and six, followed by a procession of coaches and four. 
Thomas Jefferson, true to his own democratic ideas, 
rode on horseback to the Capitol, without guard, 
escort or servant. He dismounted unaided, himself 
hitched the bridle of his horse to a fence, and without 

127 



other formality, walked into the Senate Chamber to 
deliver his inaugural. But though he would allow no 
military display, no bands or booming of cannon, he 
could not restrain the joy of his countrymen at the 
change. Democracy had come into its own. His 
day of inauguration was celebrated like the Fourth 
of July. The Declaration of Independence was every- 
where read and printed in the papers. There were 
parades, bon-fires and orations. Once again men got 
the thrill that they had received from Washington's 
farewell address. "This government," said Jefferson, 
"is the world's best hope." 

Thomas Jefferson's ideas had been thought so 
radical by his opponents that many expected sweeping 
changes in the government itself; some even feared 
revolution. But their fears were groundless. The 
important changes that were made were in the direc- 
tion of simplicity and economy. The new President 
did away with useless political offices; he gave no 
appointment to a relative. And he stopped all pomp 
and ceremony. The president's residence was no 
longer called "the Palace." He would not allow the 
usual ball to celebrate the President's birthday, and 
he stopped the royal custom of levees. At first it 
was supposed that the levees would be continued and 
a brilliant crowd gathered on the usual day, but the 
President was not at home. He was taking his regu- 
lar afternoon ride on horseback. When he returned, 
he found his parlors filled with company. In great 
good humor, he went among them just as he was, 
riding whip in hand, booted and spurred and splashed 
with mud. He laughed and laughed, and made the 
misunderstanding a joke. But it was the last of 
levees known in America. 

And so in very simple, democratic fashion, Thomas 

128 



Jefferson took up his work as president. One of his 
first acts was to pardon every man, who was in prison 
under the un-American Sedition Law. He insisted 
on being- to all men the simple Virginia gentleman 
farmer that he was. His gracious manners were al- 
ways faultless, but there are many amusing stories 
from those days, of the surprise and shock at his ap- 
pearance that the new ministers of foreign countries 
had, when they first met him. A member of the 
British legation wrote of his great height, his very 
red, freckled face, his grey neglected hair, and said: 
"He wore a blue coat, a thick gray-colored hairy 
waistcoat, with a red under-waistcoat lapped over it, 
green velveteen breeches with pearl buttons, and slip- 
pers down at the heels, his appearance being very 
much like that of a tall, large-boned farmer." When 
Jefferson went to the Capitol on the business of the 
nation, it was always, as he went at first, on the back 
of his favorite horse, which he still led himself into 
a shed, and hitched to a peg. 

He brought good fellowship and lavish Virginia 
hospitality to Washington, where French cooks made 
his liberal table famous. His shrewd understanding 
of men and of the changes of public opinion, his 
friendly ways, his kindness and good humor all helped 
him gain so great a leadership and power over men, 
that he has been called the cleverest politician this 
country has ever seen. It has been said: "He loved 
books and study, but he loved men better." People 
liked him on sight. On one of his daily horseback 
rides his party dashed along a country road and came 
to a stream that had to be forded. An old woodsman 
was there who wished to be taken across behind one 
of the riders. Looking closely at each of them, he 
silently let one after another of the horsemen pass. 

129 



Jefferson was riding last and at sight of him the old 
fellow asked for a "lift," never dreaming that the 
rider was the President of the United States. With a 
smile he was invited to mount behind the saddle and 
was promptly taken over the water. When he was 
asked why he had selected the last rider, he answered : 
"1 reckon a man carries 'yes' or 'no' in his face. The 
young chaps' faces said 'No'; the old man's, 'Yes!'" 

For his cabinet, Jefferson selected men from his own 
party, who had education and practical experience. 
His tests were these: "Is he honest? Is he capable? 
Is he faithful to the Constitution?" The country now 
was growing rapidly in population, wealth and indus- 
try, and it prospered under his leadership. The army 
was reduced until only the smallest remnant of it 
remained. All the ships of the navy were sold except 
thirteen. Internal taxes were abolished; and during 
Jefferson's first term the public debt that had been 
piled up by the Revolution was cut nearly in half. 
The only war of his administration was against the 
pirates of Tripoli, in which the gallant fighting of our 
ships freed the commerce of the world from the 
plundering of these ancient sea robbers and marked 
the birth of the American navy. 

Jefferson had always liked the Indians from the 
time, when, as a boy, he had known the best of the 
old chiefs, who loved his father and who used to 
visit his home. And among his boyhood's memories, 
never forgotten, was the night scene of the oration 
of the great Ontassete, in the Cherokee camp under 
the full moon, the power and the dignity of the 
speaker, the silence of his motionless listeners. And 
now through this respect and fondness for the Indian, 
Jefferson urged justice towards the red man and took 

130 



a stand that, in spite of selfish opposition, is still the 
policy of our government today. 

It was his love for his fellow man that established 
our generous national policy toward immigration. In 
Virginia he had made the law generous in granting 
citizenship. Through his powerful help a change 
was now made in the law of the nation, and Jefferson 
proudly wrote of this work of Congress: "They are 
opening the doors of hospitality to fugitives from 
the oppression of other countries." It was that 
friendly opening of doors that has led to the upbuild- 
ing of the nation by men of many races, until America 
has become "the land of the immigrant." 

Jefferson had remarkable foresight of the coming 
growth of our country. In those days the Mississippi 
was the extreme western boundary of the Republic, 
and it seemed a far distant river. But Jefferson had 
long looked to a day when the Pacific would be our 
boundary on the west. Spain had held enormous 
lands stretching northward from the Gulf of Mexico 
to the boundary line of British America. Westward 
they extended from the Mississippi River to the Rocky 
Mountains. The whole territory was then called 
Louisiana, and had just been ceded by Spain to 
France. Bonaparte declared that he intended to 
colonize Louisiana at once. Jefferson, man of peace 
as he was, now threatened war. Then he changed 
his plan, and when he offered to buy Louisiana, 
Napoleon's minister said that the plans for colon- 
ization were complete, the ships and officers selected, 
the whole expedition under sailing orders. But just 
at this time England won control of the seas, and 
Louisiana was in danger of falling first prize of war. 
Napoleon, fearing an entire loss of it, at last struck 
a bargain, and for $15,000,000 sold Louisiana to the 

131 



United States. The territory of the Union was thus 
more than doubled by a "stroke of the pen." It 
was Jefiferson's ambitious and persistent work, his 
clear understanding of the measureless value of Louis- 
iana, that gave the United States the vast territory 
that has made a great nation possible. 

It was during the bargaining for the purchase of 
Louisiana that Jefferson saw the first need of this 
country for its permanent peace and happiness. Time 
and again he wrote, with the wisdom of Washington 
and his own great love of peace, that we should 
never entangle ourselves with the quarrels of Europe. 
He had a "horror" of his "heavenly country becoming 
an arena of gladiators," of its suffering from the 
"ferocious and sanguinary contests of Europe," as it 
easily might, if Europe were allowed to meddle in 
affairs on this side of the Atlantic. 

We have not yet reached the time Jefferson hoped 
for, when no European gun can ever again be heard 
in our western hemisphere. But he took a wise step, 
when it was feared that England might seize Louis- 
iana, by giving immediate notice that our govern- 
ment would view "a change of neighbors with great 
uneasiness." It was his friend and disciple Presi- 
dent Monroe, who, in 1833, while Jefferson was still 
living, announced to the world in a message to Con- 
gress that the continents of North and South Amer- 
ica were no longer open to colonization by European 
countries and that the United States would object 
to any attempt to "extend their system" of inter- 
ference "to any part of this hemisphere." This policy 
has grown with the growth of our nation and is called 
"The Monroe Doctrine." 

Once Louisiana was our own, it was necessary to 
have exact knowledge of the vast lands that we had 

132 



bought, and of the mysterious Oregon country that 
lay beyond. For the interior of the great West was 
as little known to Americans in that day as the 
hidden jungles of Africa. More than a dozen years 
before, while Jefferson was Secretary of State, he 
had helped raise money to send Andrew Michaud 
exploring through the West to find out about its 
plains, rivers and mountains, its Indians and animals. 
But a greater work was now to be done. In 1804 
he sent the famous explorers, Lewis and Clark on 
their long journey that lasted nearly two years and 
a half. Up the Missouri River they went, across the 
unknown lands of the Dakota plains, through the 
wilds of Montana and the Rockies, and down the 
Columbia River, until their light canoes met, as they 
wrote, "waves like small mountains," that told them 
they had reached the Pacific. Lewis and Clark had 
hardly started on their great journey, when Jefferson 
sent Pike to explore the upper waters of the Missis- 
sippi, and later to follow to their sources the Arkan- 
sas, Colorado and Rio Grande rivers. All of these 
men brought back valuable knowledge of the Louis- 
iana Purchase, of the far Northwest and of the South- 
west, and to Jefferson they brought a wealth of 
scientific specimens. 

Meanwhile, the popularity and success of the Re- 
publican Party steadily increased. No one any longer 
feared Thomas Jefferson and his radical theories, and 
at the election of 1804 he again became president by 
a majority of the electoral college so great that it 
was almost unanimous. In his second term there 
was trouble with Spain, and the United States all 
but came to war with Great Britain, because she 
claimed the right to search American ships and seize 
American sailors. Within another four years this 

133 



was to lead to a second war with England, but Jef- 
ferson avoided it for the time, for, as he said, "Peace 
is our passion;" and he quoted Franklin's words: 
"There never was a good war, or a bad peace." 

Jefferson attempted to force England to come to 
an agreement that would be honorable and just by 
an Act of Congress that was known as the Embargo. 
This forbade Americans to export their goods to any 
foreign port. Jefferson had remembered how, be- 
fore the Revolution, England had suffered when 
Americans refused to buy English goods, and he 
thought a refusal to have any business dealings with 
England would "introduce between nations another 
umpire than arms." But American merchants lost 
heavily ; and their heavy losses caused the repeal 
of the Embargo. 

Throughout these two terms Jefferson's spirit was 
everywhere carried into the American government. 
There was struggle and strife of parties as political 
theory turned into practice, but the model of the 
government had been made. Like a well-built 
machine, it was now running smoothly. A feeling 
of loyalty to the Constitution and to the Union had 
been born and Jefferson had proved the practical 
efficiency of popular government. His unfailing be- 
lief in the people and in their fitness for self-govern- 
ment, his long struggle fbr their rights made him 
almost their idol. It has been said that no president 
whose power was not built upon war has ever had 
such power over Congress and over the people. His 
reputation and popularity were now second only to 
that of Washington. At the end of his second term 
the legislatures of five states asked him to stand for 
a third election; but he firmly refused, saying that 
the continued election of a president would give him 

134 



the office for life, and he added: "History shows how 
easily that degenerates into an inheritance." 

Jefferson was succeeded in the presidency by Madi- 
son and Monroe, his close friends and political pupils, 
who each served as president for eight years. They 
both consulted him in all important matters ; they 
often visited him, and constantly wrote him. His 
authority remained almost supreme in his party, so 
that for sixteen years after his retirement the Govern- 
ment of the United States was conducted on lines that 
he himself had drawn. 

"THE FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE" 

Back once more at Monticello, Jefferson was yet 
to fill many useful years. His great house was now 
finished. He gave himself to the work of his farm, 
to an immense correspondence and to scientific 
studies. His financial difficulties increased, so that 
he was obliged to sell much of his land, as well as his 
famous library. So serious was this trouble, that 
when he died, his whole estate was swept away by 
the debt. But in spite of these difficulties, his old 
age was serene and fruitful. His daughter Martha, 
who had been with him in Paris, had married and had 
children whom he dearly loved. 

Washington had long been dead, and Jefferson in 
his retirement was for many years the greatest living 
American. Notables from all over the world came, 
almost on pilgrimage, to see him, and great numbers 
of visitors flocked to Monticello to enjoy his bountiful 
and extravagant hospitality. There were distant 
relatives, close friends, as well as mere acquaintances, 
and absolute strangers in troops. They stood around 
in the halls and on the lawn to catch sight of the 
g-reat man. His house often sheltered more than 

135 



fifty at a time. No tavern in the whole county- 
had so many visitors. A beef killed would be eaten 
up within two days, and the entire produce of his 
farm was insufificient to feed them. But the hospitable 
Jefferson never let his visitors encroach upon his 
time. He saw them only at dinner and in the even- 
ing, and he sometimes fled from them to a distant 
farm. 

He still kept his intense interest in every great 
problem before the Republic. As a young man he 
had said that slavery meant "the most unremitting 
despotism on the one part and degrading submission 
on the other. Our children see this and learn to 
imitate it. With the morals of the people, their 
industry also is destroyed. I tremble for my country 
when I reflect that God is just, that His justice can- 
not sleep forever." 

And now in his extreme old age, believing it 
"written in the book of fate" that the negroes were to 
be free — still hoping for emancipation by law, he knew 
full well the difficulty of destroying slavery, for he 
said : "We 'have the wolf by the ears, and can neither 
hold him, nor safely let him go." And far into the 
future with the gaze of a prophet he sav/ how nearly 
slavery would wreck our "Ship of State." Then it 
was he wrote : "This momentous question, like a fire 
bell in the night, awakened me, and filled me with 
terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the 
Union." 

But the absorbing interest of the last sixteen years 
of his life, when he said, he had "one foot in the grave 
and the other lifted to follow it," was the foundation 
of the University of Virginia. With all his old en- 
thusiasm he took up this great task. He besieged 
the legislature with demands for money for the work. 

136 



He drew the plans of the buildings, and made the 
working drafts. Early in the morning he would 
mount his horse, and canter down the mountain and 
across the country, and spend the day directing the 
building. And so there arose a university, new in 
courses of study and new in rules, where for the first 
time in America, a young man had his own choice of 
his studies, was free from religious restrictions, and 
entrusted to his own honor and conscience. It was 
as Jefferson had wished — a university so "broad and 
liberal and modern, as to be a temptation to the youth 
of other states to come and drink of the cup of knowl- 
edge and fraternize with us." The founding of such 
a university was a fitting close to his life. The polit- 
ical liberties of his country had been won. Only 
knowledge was now needed to make democracy for- 
ever secure. It was in fulfillment of an oath taken 
many years before: 'T have sworn eternal hostility 
against every form of tyranny over the mind of man !" 

His eager work continued until the very end. He 
rode his fiery horse until he was so feeble that he had 
to be lifted into the saddle. His mental activity never 
failed. He followed closely what was done, said and 
thought in the world. The very last year of his life, 
when he was eighty-three years old, he reread in their 
original tongue the great Greek dramatists. He was 
happy in his family, he rejoiced in his friends. He 
loved his garden and his flowers, and, like Washington, 
the great joy of his evenings was found in the children 
who studied at his knee. 

His end was as the coming of sleep, a gradual sink- 
ing to rest. The last week of June of the year 1826 he 
was still able to write long letters. One of them was 
a reply to an invitation to attend a Fourth of July 
celebration in Washington. 

137 



"With a trembling hand, but with a buoyant heart, 
he wrote: 'All eyes are open or opening to the rights 
of man. The mass of mankind have not been born 
with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted 
and spurred ready to ride them legitimately, by the 
Grace of God !' " 

But now his strength slowly failed, and it was seen 
that death was near. It was the third of July. He 
roused himself again and again, greatly desiring to 
live until the Fourth. As the night wore on, from 
time to time he eagerly whispered: "This is the 
Fourth?" Those who sat by his bedside kept watch- 
ing the clock, fearing that his spirit would pass before 
midnight. The hour struck, and once more he stirred 
restlessly and asked: "This is the Fourth?" At the 
nod, with a happy sigh of relief, he breathed: "Ah!" 
And the old smile lit up his features. Not until noon 
of the great anniversary did he sink into the endless 
slumber. Exactly fifty years had gone since the 
Declaration of Independence was given to the world. 
On the afternoon of that same day at Quincy in Mas- 
sachusetts, the great John Adams, his friend and sup- 
porter in the Continental Congress, passed away. The 
last words on his lips were: "Thomas Jefferson still 
lives." 



138 



I 



i/ 



tyA^^AMcaUu 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN 

THE SAVIOR OF HIS COUNTRY 

"His heart was as great as the world, but there was no 
room in it to hold the memory of a wrong" — Ralph Waldo 

Emerson. 

Americans have often thought of their nation as 
a mighty ship, that was carrying them and all that 
they held dear, now over tranquil waters, now through 
the perils and the tempests of an unknown sea. Wash- 
ington had guided our "Ship of State" safely through 
the storms of her first voyage. Jefferson stood at 
the helm when Abraham Lincoln was born — that 
great captain who saved our noble vessel from ship- 
wreck on the rocks of slavery and brought her safe 
to harbor, only to lie himself silent and lifeless on 
her deck. 

In the century that had passed since Franklin's 
birth, the narrow strip of weak and divided English 
colonies along the Atlantic shore had grown to a 
united nation of eighteen strong states, that spread 
beyond the Allegheny Mountains to the broad Miss- 
issippi ; and now JeflFerson's Louisiana Purchase 
had moved its boundary even farther west, to the 
heights of the Rockies. Slavery had grown with the 
country. At the very beginning of our national life, 
Franklin, with almost his last breath protested against 
it to Congress and called it "a crime." Washington 
wished to see it ended by the free act of the people 

139 



in their legislatures. Even as a young man, Jefferson 
had worked vainly to free Virginia from it in this 
same wise way. And now Lincoln, having in him the 
heart and soul of America, was raised up to save his 
country from the curse of slavery, 

A SON OF THE FRONTIER 

The Lincolns came to America from England in 
1635 and settled first in Massachusetts. Fathers and 
sons, they all loved adventure and a wandering life, 
and gradually drifted towards the South, and then 
with other settlers followed the frontier as it moved 
westward. From Massachusetts they went to New 
Jersey, and from New Jersey to Pennsylvania, where 
they were known as Quakers. For many years they 
found a home in Virginia. 

The great Liberator took his name from his grand- 
father, the first Abraham Lincoln, who, at the end of 
the Revolution struck west through the forests and 
mountains, and made his way from Virginia to Ken- 
tucky, the bloody battle ground of the Indians. For 
here his friend, Daniel Boone, the great pioneer and 
frontiersman, had been for three years, founding a 
new settlement in the wilderness. Furious at the 
white men for taking their land, the Indians crept 
stealthily to their work of revenge, scalping and mur- 
dering whole families, and sometimes taking women 
and children prisoners. One morning in 1784, little 
six year old Thomas was with his father, Abraham, 
in the forest. Suddenly the ten year old brother 
Mordecai heard a shot and saw his father fall. He 
saw the Indian murderer running off with his small 
brother. Snatching up a gun, aiming it through a 
loophole in the logs of the cabin, Mordecai fired, the 

140 



Indian staggered and fell, and little Thomas ran safe 
to his mother's arms. He lived to become the father 
of the great Lincoln. 

Trained by the hardships of the frontier, the Lincolns 
handed down from father to son strength of body and 
of character. But Thomas Lincoln had lost the energy 
of his Quaker fathers. He was a carpenter by trade, 
without ambition, and not able to win a good living 
from the hard frontier life. His wife, who had been 
Nancy Hanks, was long remembered as a beautiful, 
gentle Quaker girl, with the deep religious spirit of 
her people. She eagerly read every book she could 
find, and patiently taught her husband the alphabet 
and how to write his name. 

In the rough log cabin swept by the winter winds, 
on a little farm by Nolin Creek in the wild new coun- 
try of Kentucky, their second child, Abraham Lincoln 
was born, February 12, 1809. Never prospering, the 
little family soon moved to another farm, and Thomas 
built a poor cabin for their home. When Abraham 
was seven years old, there seemed to be hope of better 
fortune in Indiana, where settlers were then able to 
buy land from the United States government for $2 
an acre. 

And so, in the dreary month of November, with two 
horses, the little family worked its hard way north 
to the new lands, through nearly one hundred miles 
of forest — Abraham, a boy of seven, using his gun and 
axe like his father. For that first winter in the heart 
of the wilderness, only a rough three-sided shed, with 
a buffalo skin to close it, sheltered them from the cold 
rains and snows and driving winds. In front of it was 
the fire, always burning. Over this, from stakes, on 
a chain swung the big iron kettle in which their food 
was cooked — fat bacon, corn and beans. Their bread 

141 



was made of corn meal and was baked in the ashes. 

While the delicate mother did her heavy work she 
found time to tell her little son the fine old stories 
of the Bible, and to teach him how to read and write 
a little. Thomas Lincoln spent the winter cutting 
timber for a new log cabin, but it was a year before 
it was finished and they went to live in it. Even then 
it was still without floor and doors. Little Abraham's 
bed was a heap of dry leaves in the corner of the loft, 
and he climbed up to it by a ladder of pegs driven 
into the log wall. They were poor and life was very 
hard, so that they went through "pretty pinching 
times," as he said in later days. 

Within another year Nancy Lincoln died. She had 
faithfully shared the hard and lonely life of her slip- 
shod husband, but in spirit she lived in a world apart. 
Often her sad eyes seemed to see a life far beyond the 
rough days of the frontier, a life that she longed to give 
her boy, for she knew the mind and the heart that 
were in him. In those ten years she stamped on 
Abraham Lincoln her own high ideals of truth and 
honor, her own reverent and religious spirit. Her 
dying words were : "I am going away from you, Abra- 
ham, and shall not return. I want you to live as I 
have taught you, and to love your Heavenly Father." 
Her husband made the rude coffin, and friends laid 
her to rest, but her ten year old son could not bear 
the thought that his mother had been buried without 
a religious service. Earnestly he worked at a letter 
to a minister who lived one hundred miles away. 
Touched to the heart, the preacher made the long 
journey on horseback, and there was hymn and sermon 
and prayer at the lonely grave in an opening of the 
timberland. Abraham never forgot his mother nor 
lost her influence. As a man he said with tears in 

142 



his eyes: "All that I am and all that I hope to be I 
owe to my sainted mother." 

Alone in the wretched cabin, half hidden by drifting 
snow, the motherless children shivered together 
through the long, cold winter. For more than a year 
the little sister, Sarah, struggled with the housework 
and Abraham helped as he could. One day in 1820 a 
four-horse wagon drove up to the cabin and in it were 
a new mother, two girls and a boy, feather beds, 
bureaus and chairs, more furniture than the little 
Lincolns had ever before seen. Thomas Lincoln had 
been back to Kentucky, and had married an old sweet- 
heart, Sarah Bush Johnston, who had been left a 
widow with three children. A very tall woman she 
was, "handsome, sprightly, talkative and proud," and 
she was besides an ambitious and practical worker, 
just the kind of a helpmate that Thomas Lincoln 
needed. Under her capable hands the cabin was no 
longer a place of misery, but rang with the laughter 
of happy children. In a short time the floor was laid, 
a door was hung, windows cut, and the holes in the 
cabin walls plastered. Abraham and Sarah, who had 
been poor, ragged, barefoot little waifs, were now 
neatly dressed,they slept in a feather bed and had other 
comforts unknown before. And as for Abraham, his 
step-mother soon saw his ability and did everything 
she could to help him, and there grew up between 
them a strong and lasting love. 

Lincoln went to school, as he said, "by littles" 
during a period of about nine years. All his schooling 
together, according to his calculation, did not amount 
to one year ; but between times he learned, like Frank- 
lin, to help himself, and so knew far more than his 
comrades. He learned to read well, to cipher and 
write a clear hand; he was a good speller, and of him- 

143 



self discovered the correct form of the tamily name, 
Lincoln, which had always been written Linkhern or 
Linkhorn, at the rare times, when those unschooled 
frontiersmen needed to sign their name. 

There were no slates and slate pencils to be had 
in those early days in the West, so it was on a wooden 
shovel with a bit of charcoal that Lincoln worked his 
sums by the flickering glow of the fire, or by the pale 
light of dawn. When the shovel was covered with fig- 
ures he shaved it off clean and used it again. On this 
same shovel or on wooden shingles, he wrote com- 
positions and essays of his own, cutting them down to 
as few words as possible, because of lack of space. 
Then with blackberry root ink and a pen made from 
a wild turkey's quill he copied them carefully on paper. 
And he wrote in his arithmetic: 

"Abraham Lincoln 

His hand and pen; 

He will be good, 

But God knows when." 
Hard work was his lot from a small boy. Barefoot 
he helped his father to clear the dense forest, plow 
ground, plant corn, gather and shuck it. He was 
often hired out to nearby families for all sorts of odd 
jobs, even to tend a neighbor's baby. Yet every 
spare moment, even at his meals, walking along the 
road, or while his horse rested from plowing at the end 
of a long furrow, he would be buried in some book. 
His stepmother said : "Abe read diligently every book 
he could lay his hands on — he once told a friend that 
he had "read through every book he had heard of with- 
in a circuit of fifty miles" — and when he came to a 
passage that struck him, he would write it down on 
boards, if he had no paper, and keep it there until he 
did get paper. Then he would rewrite it, look at it, 

144 



and repeat it." He had a kind of scrap book in which 
he put everything that interested him. After his work 
was over, he would often read some book, even a 
dictionary, in the dusk as long as he could see. 

Many an hour by the light of a blazing pine knot, 
the boy lay on the floor laughing over the Arabian 
Nights. He read Aesop's Fables over and over, learning 
from it to tell stories with a point. He read the Bible 
until he knew a large part of it by heart. He read 
Robinson Crusoe; Pilgrim's Progress; Plutarch's Lives, 
Franklin's favorite book; a history of the United 
States; and the lives of Benjamin Franklin and of 
Washington. Of Washington's life he never tired. 
He was thrilled by the pages that told the story 
of Trenton and the crossing of the Delaware, 
thrilled by the heroism and sacrifices of the patriots 
and by their wonderful love for their country. It 
was this book that he borrowed from a neighbor called 
Crawford, and one night read in his bed in the loft 
until his "nubbin" of candle burned out. Then he 
stuck the book between the logs of the cabin wall be- 
side him, so that he could get it the first thing in the 
morning. During the night it was soaked by a heavy 
rain, and Lincoln had to pull corn for three days to 
pay for it. 

Even in the stories of his boyhood, the spirit and 
traits of the great Lincoln shine. He could never 
bear to see suffering. He once killed a wild turkey, 
but that was the end of his hunting. When his com- 
rades, in their rough and thoughtless way, tortured 
animals, he wrote of it in a composition as mean, 
cruel and wicked. Seeing men drunk with whiskey, 
he wrote on "Temperance," yet showed his kind heart 
by pulling the town drunkard out of a ditch on a bitter 
cold night, so saving him from death. He wrote witty 

145 



verses about people whom he did not like, and some of 
his ideas on public questions were so good and so 
well expressed, that they were published in the new 
county weekly. 

He was still only a boy when he began to take an 
interest in politics and the law. He read speeches of 
Henry Clay, the great statesman and political orator. 
And he would often walk twelve miles to the con- 
stable's house to read the dry volume of the laws of 
Indiana. He began to attend court, and here again 
distance was no obstacle to his long legs. Day after 
day he walked thirty-four miles to hear an interesting 
murder trial. And when the able lawyer for the de- 
fense finished his argument, the young Abraham was 
so moved by it that he hurried across the room, eagerly 
grasped his hand, and said: "That was the best speech 
I ever heard." From that time he was determined to 
be a lawyer. 

He was little more than a lad when his great talent 
for speaking was discovered. Men and boys from the 
farms and the woods stood listening in delight, when 
he mounted the stump and made them speeches that 
were sometimes comical, sometimes serious. They 
liked not less to gather round him at a house raising 
or corn-husking, and to listen to his talk so full of 
wit and funny stories, or to hear him mimic the sermon 
of some odd travelling preacher. Lincoln far pre- 
ferred to study, or to read and make speeches than 
to work with his hands. Yet helping his father, he 
became something of a carpenter himself, and made 
shelves, chairs and cabinets. He used to say that his 
"father taught him to work, but never taught him to 
love it." Yet when he worked, he worked hard. When 
he was a man grown, with his great strength, equal to 
that of three men, they said, he could lift and carry a 

146 



pair of logs ; and no axe, in that whole country of 
woodsmen, could sink so deep into the trunk of a tree 
as that swung- by his mighty arms. He liked to use 
his strength in the favorite sports of running and 
wrestling, in which he was a leader. 

At nineteen he had his full growth, six feet four in 
his bare feet. He was thin, but he had large bones 
and strong muscles; his arms and legs were unusually 
long, his hands and feet huge. Every inch a big rough 
clodhopper he looked, in his deerskin trousers held up 
by a single suspender. Shrunk tight and short for 
his legs, they showed several inches of bluish shin 
above his heavy cowhide shoes, that were worn only 
on Sundays or in very cold weather. A coarse home- 
spun shirt covered his gaunt shoulders and arms. In 
winter he wore a coon skin cap pressed down on his 
wiry black hair; in summer, a rough straw hat with- 
out a band. 

But it was the talk of Abraham Lincoln, and his 
face, with its strongly marked features, that drew men 
to him by a charm and power they could not resist. 
There they saw a nature strangely mixed, the rough 
with the fine, the commonplace with the ideal, great 
strength with deep tenderness, fun often coarse, with 
a sadness almost tragic. The shadow of this sadness 
never left his dark grey eyes, and seemed to speak 
of the path before him. 

In 1828 this boy of nineteen had his first glimpse of 
the great world in an eighteen hundred mile journey 
down the Mississippi, swollen with the spring floods. 
A neighbor had sent him in charge of a flat boat, to 
market among the cotton planters its load of vege- 
tables and bacon. In the South, he saw new sights 
indeed — the hanging mosses, the alligators blinking 
in the sun, the negroes, the cotton fields, busy steam- 

147 



boats plying to and fro, tall masted ships at anchor 
and sailors chattering in strange tongues. He went back 
to his home at Pigeon Cove, restless and discontented, 
eager to go out into the world to seek his fortune. 
But when he was told that it was his duty to stay 
with his father till he was of age, he remembered 
what his mother had told him about duty, and waited. 
People who knew him in these days of his youth, after- 
wards had a thousand stories to tell of his ready sym- 
pathy, his kind and generous nature. With a body 
splendidly strong, he had a very active mind, a wonder- 
ful memory, keen reasoning powers, a quick wit and 
the best gift for story-telling in all Indiana. 

For some time past lumbering, white covered 
wagons had been carrying settlers westward, for the 
frontier now reached nearly to the Mississippi. The 
sight stirred the wandering Lincoln blood, and by 
March 1830 the family was moving again. The great 
wagons, drawn by heavy ox teams, were all ready 
to start on the rough two weeks' journey to Illinois, 
but Abraham was missing. Searching, they found 
him weeping at his mother's grave. Sadly he left and, 
whip in hand strode along, guiding the oxen through 
the heavy mud, his heart filled with tender memories 
of the past. 

Another log cabin was built in Illinois and, to fence 
ten acres of land, Lincoln split those long, rough, 
wooden rails, that men were to talk so much about in 
later years, when this same Abraham Lincoln, the 
"rail splitter," became a candidate for the presidency 
of the United States. With his sharp axe and his 
wedges, he cut rails for neighboring settlers who 
needed them. And after he came to fame, his old 
friends remembered that when he had reached his 
new home in Illinois, his clothes were ragged and as 

148 



he had no money to buy new, he split fourteen hundred 
rails to pay a woman for a pair of trousers she made 
him. 

The next March, just after he had turned the age of 
twenty-one, Lincoln started out in the world for 
himself. Again he went to New Orleans on a flat boat, 
and there for the first time saw a negro slave put up 
on a block and sold at auction to the highest bidder, 
just as if he were a horse or a cow. The brutality 
of the sight made him turn away sick at heart. It 
was then and there that slavery "ran its iron" into 
him. With his hand lifted to heaven, and fire in his 
earnest eyes, he cried : "If I ever get a chance to hit 
that institution, I'll hit it hard, by the Eternal God!" 

For some years after this, Lincoln lived in a small 
Illinois village called New Salem. Here he loafed 
or worked from day to day, "spinning his Indiana 
yarns," as they called his stories, and gaining a new 
reputation for great physical strength. Forced into 
a fight with Jack Armstrong, the bully of the place, 
Lincoln thrashed him, and so won the liking and re- 
spect of the rough gang Armstrong led, that when the 
Black Hawk War with the Indians broke out in 1832, 
they chose him as captain of volunteers. But the war 
was soon over, and his company never saw active 
service. Here in New Salem he became pilot on a 
steamboat; later, clerk in a store where he won the 
lasting nickname of "Honest Abe." He was so honest, 
they said, that he once walked two miles to correct 
a mistake in change of six cents. 

In August of that same year, he was candidate for 
the legislature. And this was his first campaign 
speech: "Gentlemen and Fellow-Citizens. I presume 
you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham Lin- 
coln. I have been solicited by my friends to become 

149 



a candidate for the legislature. My politics are short 
and sweet, like the old woman's dance. I am in favor 
of a national bank. I am in favor of the internal im- 
provement system and a high protective tariff. These 
are my sentiments and political principles. If elected 
I shall be thankful. If not, it will be all the same." 
But he was defeated — "the only time," as he proudly 
said after he became President, "I have ever been 
beaten by the people." 

Then with a man named Berry as partner, he bought 
up three small stores in New Salem, and combined 
them in one. Berry spent most of his time drinking, 
and Lincoln, his heels high on the counter, or out of 
doors lying flat on his back in the shade, his bare feet 
up a tree, was usually deep in some book. The book 
might be Shakespeare, which he came to know almost 
as well as he knew the Bible ; or Burns, whose poems 
he so loved that he could repeat nearly all of them ; 
or it might be an English grammar or a law book. 
Business was neglected for books, and it is small 
wonder that within a year the business "winked out," 
as Lincoln said, and left the firm owing $1,200. Berry 
soon died and the entire burden of the debt came upon 
Lincoln's shoulders. In jest he called it "the national 
debt." It took seventeen years of struggle and saving 
to free himself, but in the end every dollar of the debt 
was paid. 

Abraham Lincoln's next work was that of deputy 
surveyor and postmaster of New Salem. When he 
first started surveying, his surveyor's chain was only 
a grapevine, but, like Washington, he was very 
accurate and never made mistakes. The position of 
deputy surveyor paid better than that of postmaster, 
for the mail was so small that Lincoln carried it about 
in his hat, until he could deliver it. Wherever the 

150 



postmaster went, there was the post office. It was 
not until two or three years after his appointment, 
that an agent came one day from Washington to col- 
lect from the New Salem Post Office the money due 
the United States. Asking him to be seated, Lincoln 
took out of his trunk an old blue sock with a quantity 
of silver and copper coin tied up in it, and counted out 
the exact pieces he had received as postmaster. He 
had never used a cent of it throughout those years of 
poverty, when even his horse, his saddle and his sur- 
veying instruments were sold by the sheriff for debt. 
Lincoln was poor in this world's goods, but rich 
in the love and trust of his friends. He was always 
willing to "lend a hand," and, so it was said: "He 
visited the fatherless and widows and chopped their 
wood." He was often umpire at horse races and 
wrestling matches. He worked on at his law books, 
and acted as a lawyer in a small way without a fee. 

FROM STATE LEGISLATURE TO CONGRESS 

In 1834 Lincoln tried again for a place in the legis- 
lature, and his humorous and common sense stump 
speeches won his election. No longer shabby, but in a 
brand new suit of "store clothes" for which a friend 
loaned the money, he went to Vandalia, the capital 
of Illinois. 

He was starting a new life. Like Washington he 
watched keenly the business before the house, but 
seldom spoke. Here he met Stephen A. Douglas, who 
for years was to be his rival in many a great affair — 
a man short and broad, as he himself was tall and thin. 
He was so short that Lincoln called him the "least 
man I ever saw." 

In 1836 Lincoln was again elected to the legislature. 

151 



It was in this campaign he took part in a debate that 
people were to tell about and laugh over for many- 
years to come. His opponent had changed his politics, 
received a well paid office as his reward, and had 
just put up on his handsome house the first lightning 
rod ever seen in Springfield. During this debate Lin- 
coln stood pale and silent, his eyes flashing as he heard 
himself attacked for being a young man. When his 
turn came, after answering the arguments made against 
him, he ended by saying: "The gentleman has seen fit 
to allude to my being a young man ; but he forgets 
that I am older in years than I am in the tricks and 
trades of politicians. I desire to live, and I desire 
place and distinction, but I would rather die now than, 
like the gentleman, live to sec the day that I would 
change my politics for an office worth three thousand 
dollars a year, and then feel compelled to erect a light- 
ning rod to protect a guilty conscience from an offend- 
ed God." 

Again in 1838 and 1840 Lincoln took his seat in the 
legislature. A true democrat always, he lived close 
to the people and believed in their judgement as the 
surest guide in public aflFairs. His eight years in the 
legislature were a school of experience in politics, 
where his power and wisdom as a statesman first de- 
veloped. Leader of the "Long Nine," the nickname 
given to the nine members, all over six feet tall, from 
his county of Sangamon, he worked hard to give the 
state "a general system of internal improvements" — 
railroads, canals, banks — a plan which pleased the pro- 
gressive people of the West, but ran the State deep 
into debt. Through his efforts, the state capital was 
moved from Vandalia to Springfield, and a great ban- 
quet was given to the "Long Nine" on their return. 
Lincoln was then joyfully hailed, as a man who "has 

152 



fulfilled the expectations of his friends and disap- 
pointed the hopes of his enemies." Because of these 
successes, he once had dreams of becoming the 
governor of the State of Illinois. 

The great thing he did in these eight years, that 
stands out superb in its courage, was his protest, the 
whole legislature but one man against him, that "the 
institution of slavery is founded on both injustice and 
bad policy." This marked the course of his future life 
and service to his country and came at a time when, 
throughout the West, a man who wished the negroes 
to have their freedom was thought not much better 
than a horse thief. In the West, in those days, a 
horse thief was promptly hanged. 

In 1836, at the age of twenty-seven, Lincoln had 
been admitted to the bar, and early in that year he 
went to Springfield to live. On a borrowed horse, 
almost penniless, with nothing but a few clothes in 
his saddle bags, he rode up to the store of an acquaint- 
ance, a man by the name of Speed. He asked if he 
could buy bedding, and have credit for it till Christmas, 
when he hoped to be a success as a lawyer. "If I fail 
in this," he said, *T do not know that I can ever pay 
you." Speed, thinking he had never seen a sadder 
face, offered to share his own large bed with him. 
"Where is your room?" asked the young lawyer 
briskly. "Up there," said Speed, pointing to the 
stairway. Lincoln picked up his saddle bags, carried 
them up the stairs, dropped them on the floor, and 
came back beaming with delight. "Well, Speed, I've 
moved!" he said. 

What did men see as they looked at him now? An 
awkward, shy young man, almost as slender and as 
tall as one of his own fence rails, clad in clothes of 
Kentucky jean, his home spun coat reaching below 

153 



his knees, and sometimes out at the elbows. In his 
clean-shaven face, in his forehead, eyes and nose, there 
was something almost Roman. But in his high cheek 
bones and dark brown skin there was also something 
of the Indian. It was a very plain face that became 
almost beautiful when he smiled. And this great 
beauty of his smile and the sadness of his eyes were 
the things about him that men always noticed and 
always remembered. He had a hearty hand clasp, a 
sympathetic voice. He made friends quickly, and on 
cold winter nights, no matter how bad the weather, 
the choice spirits of Springfield gathered round the 
great wood fire in Speed's store, just because Lincoln 
was sure to be there — Lincoln with his stories that 
usually had a serious point, though they caused such 
uproarious laughter. Yet for all the fun, the friend- 
ship and good fellowship of the man, and his intense 
love for the people, he was never treated with famil- 
iarity. They spoke of him as "Honest Abe," and as 
he grew older, as "Uncle Abe," but they always ad- 
dressed him as "Mr. Lincoln." 

The young lawyer was soon widely known and 
warmly welcomed as he rode about the country with 
the district judge, "on the circuit," from court house 
to court house. Everyone said that he was too honest 
to make a good lawyer. Yet in twenty-five years, 
Lincoln worked up from a five dollar fee before a 
justice of the peace to a five thousand dollar fee 
before the Supreme Court of Illinois. In his rules 
for lawyers Lincoln says : "Resolve to be honest at all 
events ; and if in your own judgement you cannot be 
an honest lawyer, resolve to be honest without being 
a lawyer." 

And well did he follow his own advice. Not by his 
learning nor by his witty stories did he carry juries 

154 



with him, but by the honesty and justice of his char- 
acter, and by his power in defence of truth. When 
he once saw his duty it was, in his phrase, "as plain 
as a turnpike road." And because he would only de- 
fend the right, he once gave up a case in the middle 
of the testimony, when he found that his client was 
an the wrong. If he were asked to act as attorney 
in a cause that was unfair, he would try to persuade 
his client to give up his claim. Men accused of crime 
knew that he was a poor lawyer to have unless they 
were innocent. Usually in court he was calm and 
kindly, but when roused by falsehood or injustice, his 
anger was a thing to dread. In defence of the 
wronged he was as tender in sympathy as he was 
terrible in attack. He had a great talent for ridding 
a case of difficulties, for making the issue clear, for 
asking questions that were their own answers. And 
always he had new and good stories to tell, stories 
that had point and humor and brought conviction. 
His great height was impressive. His arms and legs 
were continually in motion. At times of passion or 
pathos, he would stretch out his long arm toward 
the jury-box and shake his bony fingers with telling 
effect. Judges and juries came to feel that his side 
in a case was pretty sure to be the right side. He 
quickly grew to be one of the ablest lawyers of all 
Illinois, and was engaged to defend causes of great 
importance. 

Lincoln was not orderly. He carried most of his 
legal papers in his high hat. On one bundle of them 
he wrote: "When you can't find it anywhere else, 
look into this." His accounts were carelessly kept; 
he often forgot to enter his fees, which were 
usually ridiculously small. When he was paid, he 

155 



would put half into his pocket, and mark the rest 
with his partner's name, "Herndon's half." 

Then and always, Lincoln was ready to help any 
living creature in distress. His lawyer friends told 
how, when they were riding with him "on the cir- 
cuit," he had once dropped behind their party, and 
caught two young birds that were helpless and flut- 
tering on the ground, and then had hunted up their 
nest and put them back. And once, they said, as he 
rode along he passed a pig struggling desperately in 
the mud of a deep pit. Respecting the new clothes 
he wore, he went on. But he turned back after two 
miles, built a bridge of old rails to the bottom of the 
hole, rescued the pig, ruined his fine clothes, and all, 
as he said, just "to take a pain out of his own mind." 

Now comes the story of Lincoln's courtship and 
marriage. In his early manhood he had won the love 
of Ann Rutledge, a sweet, blue-eyed girl, filled with 
a spirit like his own. At her death, Lincoln's grief 
had been so terrible, that those who loved him feared 
he would lose his mind. Friends took him home and 
at last ^y their care won him back to some interest 
in life. But now in 1842 he and Stephen A. Douglas 
became rivals for the hand of Mary Todd, of Ken- 
tucky, a handsome, witty and dashing girl, who from 
her first arrival in Springfield, had been the society 
queen in the ambitious new state capital. To the 
surprise of the town, she chose the awkward and 
simple-mannered Lincoln instead of the polished and 
brilliant Douglas, and the day of the wedding was 
set. But for a reason that has always remained a 
mystery, the engagement was broken. 'T am now 
the most miserable man living," Lincoln wrote a 
friend. "If what I feel were equally distributed to 
the whole human family, there would not be one 

156 



cheerful face on earth." A new attack of misery and 
melancholy came upon him. Finally the engagement 
was renewed and they were married November 4, 1842. 
The trials and struggles of his home life, bravely and 
patiently borne for years in silence, form a pathetic 
story, that was guessed only by his nearest friends. 

His hard and honest work in the legislature and his 
growing popularity brought him an election in 1846 
as a representative in Congress, and he appeared in 
Washington, in the House of Representatives, at the 
same time that Douglas took his seat in the Senate. 
"By way of getting the hang of the House," he wrote 
his partner, Herndon, "I made a little speech, and was 
about as badly scared — and no worse — as I am when 
I speak in court. As you are all so anxious for me 
to distinguish myself, I shall do so before long." 

THE BEGINNING OF HIS GREAT WORK 

People now knew that slavery was the cause nearest 
Lincoln's heart. "We have got to deal with this 
slavery question," he said, "and we have got to give 
much more attention to it hereafter than we have been 
doing." 

At the beginning of the Revolution, negro slavery 
had been permitted by law in every one of the colonies, 
though high-minded men in the South, as in the North, 
opposed it even then. The opposition was strongest 
in the North, yet for many years after the Revolution, 
slavery was still permitted in New York and New 
Jersey. But in the North, negro labor was not of 
great value for the difficult work of farming and 
manufacture. There slavery was gradually and easily 
abolished. And as the country was settled farther 
and farther west, the new states that were formed 

157 



in the North were all free states, and in them no man 
could be held as a slave. In the South, the slaves did 
well enough for the simple work of growing tobacco, 
cotton and rice. They had been used profitably for 
this purpose for more than two hundred years. And, 
on this account, slavery flourished in the South, and 
the new southern states were all slave states. 

But the world progresses, and it began to be more 
and more widely felt that slavery was a great wrong. 
In 1820, when Lincoln was a small boy in Indiana, 
the slave trade had been declared "piracy by the 
United States government, and by the other great 
nations of the world. Slaves could no longer be 
brought from Africa across the ocean. Yet those that 
were owned in the states of the South, could still be 
bought and sold like oxen, or any other cattle, and 
their children were born to a slavery they could not 
escape. By private sale, but chiefly by public auction, 
negro husbands and wives, parents and children were 
sometimes cruelly separated from each other. Slaves 
could be forced to work as much as fifteen hours a 
day, and no part of the result of their labor belonged 
to them, but all of it belonged to their owners. It was 
forbidden to teach them to read and write. The law 
allowed them to be shut up and chained, or beaten, or 
cut with a lash until they fainted from loss of blood. 

There is no doubt that most of the slaves were well 
and kindly treated, and often there was great affection 
between them and their masters. But there were many 
terrible abuses. And there is also no doubt that 
the owners had full rights over the slaves, and that 
the slaves had almost no rights whatever. It was 
Lincoln who boldly said : "If slavery is not wrong, 
nothing is wrong." 

In Congress he fought hard, but vainly, for a plan to 

158 



keep slavery out of the enormous territory, which had 
just been taken from Mexico in war. These vast 
lands, now made into the many states that lie between 
Texas and Oregon, were equal in area to Spain, France 
and Germany added together. Lincoln voted for this 
"at least forty times," he said. And he proposed and 
just failed to have a law passed to free gradually the 
slaves in the District of Columbia. Voting "for the 
truth rather than for a lie," he gave his support to a 
measure declaring that the Mexican War had been 
"unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced" by 
our government. This cost him his seat as congress- 
man. He left Washington despairing of ever being 
able to rouse the people against slavery or to free 
his country from its curse. 

Back again in Springfield, disheartened, Lincoln 
strode along the streets, his gaunt figure in a suit of 
rusty black, his head bent forward in thought, dark 
rings beneath his hollow eyes. His hands were 
clasped behind his back, melancholy "dripping from 
him as he walked." Often one of his little sons 
pattered along beside him, fretfully tugging at his 
great bony hand in the vain hope of being noticed. 
"He was a man of sorrows, not sorrows of today or 
yesterday, but long-treasured and deep," his most 
intimate friend said of him at this time. He himself 
often admitted that he had been superstitious from 
boyhood. The coming of important events was 
marked by a strange dream or a presentiment or in 
some other mysterious way. For years dark fore- 
bodings of the future had filled his mind. Some 
"great or miserable end" was to be his, and to this 
fate he was resigned. 

But happiness seemed almost as natural to him as 
melancholy. He loved laughter, good stories, the 

159 



jolly fellowship of men. And he delighted in his 
children. He would often be seen striding down 
the main street of Springfield with one boy high on 
his shoulder, the other following after, hanging to the 
tail of his long coat. One day both of them were 
running along beside him crying loudly. "What's the 
matter with the boys, Mr. Lincoln?" asked a neighbor. 
"Just what's the matter with the whole world;" Lin- 
coln replied. "I've got three walnuts and each wants 
two." 

He now returned to his profession and the work 
of the courts. Many of his lawyer friends were grow- 
ing wealthy. But Lincoln still "rode the circuit," a 
gray shawl about his shoulders, carrying a carpet bag, 
fat with papers and clothing, and a faded green cotton 
umbrella without a handle, tied with a piece of twine, 
"A. Lincoln" in large white muslin letters on the in- 
side. He had great need of money. The "national 
debt" was paid, but he had his family to support, his 
father, his devoted step-mother and a ne'er-do-well 
step-brother to help and, after his father's death, a 
mortgage on the old home to settle. 

One night, past one o'clock, after Lincoln had been 
away for a week, his neighbor heard the sound of an 
axe. Leaving his bed, he saw Lincoln in the moon- 
light, chopping wood to cook his supper. "Lincoln," 
they said, "was his own wood chopper, hostler, stable- 
boy and cow-boy clear down to, and even beyond, 
the time that he was President-Elect of the United 
States." 

And now at last, slavery became the great, pressing 
question before the people. Thirty years before, 
in 1820, Missouri had been admitted into the Union, 
as a state in which slavery would be permitted by law. 
But it was agreed at that time that slavery should 

160 



forever be forbidden in all the rest of the lands of the 
Louisiana Purchase that were north of the southern 
boundary of Missouri. This "Missouri Compromise" 
was roughly set aside by a law that had been proposed 
and introduced in the Senate by Douglas, allowing 
the two new territories of Kansas and Nebraska, then 
being organized, to decide for themselves, when they 
asked for statehood, whether they would be slave 
states or free states. This plan was called the Kan- 
sas-Nebraska Bill, and it became a law in 1854. It 
was hoped that this would solve the dangerous prob- 
lem, and quiet the passions both of the free North 
and the slave-holding South ; but the North soon 
realized that what the new law really did was to open 
to slavery a great territory of the Northwest, a ter- 
ritory that has since given nine states to the Union. 

So it could no longer be denied that slavery was 
invading the North. Lincoln had given the warning 
cry: "Slavery is spreading like wildfire over the coun- 
try." The famous novel. Uncle Tom's Cabin, had 
told the nation the story of its horrors. Great poets 
and orators had been preaching freedom for many 
years. For the whole North it was a terrible struggle 
between good and evil, and evil was winning. In the 
words of Lowell, they saw 

"Truth forever on the scaffold 
Wrong forever on the throne." 

And the hatred of this wrong that had been lulled 
by compromise, burst out anew and swept the nation 
on to the Civil War. Slavery became the chief polit- 
ical problem of the country; old party ties and friend- 
ships were broken and the Republican party was born 
to fight the battle of freedom. 

Abraham Lincoln's hour had come. Douglas was 
his opponent, an able politician, a powerful speaker. 

161 



Like Lincoln he had started life poor. He had come 
from Vermont to Illinois with thirty-seven cents in his 
pocket, but had soon been admitted to the bar. He 
had been member of the legislature, Secretary of 
State, a judge of the Supreme Court of Illinois, three 
times a Representative at Washington, and was now 
a Senator at the age of thirty-nine. Returning from 
Washington Senator Douglas was met in Illinois by 
a storm of anger, which took all his great courage to 
face. But he boldly defended his Kansas-Nebraska 
Bill. Lincoln gave answer with a power he had 
never before reached in a speech, a power that held 
a vast crowd breathless for three long hours. It was 
a speech that made him champion in the great cause 
of human liberty. Again within a few days he came 
to the attack. "Repeal the Missouri Compromise !" 
cried Lincoln, "Repeal all compromises ! Repeal the 
Declaration of Independence ! Repeal past history, 
you still cannot repeal human nature. It still will be 
the abundance of man's heart that slavery extension 
is wrong, and out of the abundance of his heart, his 
mouth will continue to speak. . . .Little by little, but 
steadily as man's march to the grave, we have been 
giving up the old for the new faith. Near eighty 
years ago we began by declaring that all men are 
created equal ; but now from that beginning we have 
run down to the other declaration that for some men 
to enslave others is a 'sacred right of self-government.' 
These principles cannot stand together. They are as 
opposite as God and Mammon." 

These speeches were the opening of the great final 
conflict between North and South — the great struggle 
to save the Union and to free the slaves. The fight 
for the election of a senator in Illinois in 1858 became 
a personal battle between the two champions, Lincoln 

163 



and Douglas, whom his friends called "the Little 
Giant," fighting face to face in the arena, the whole 
country intent upon them. Lincoln had again been 
elected to the legislature, but he resigned. "I have 
really got it into my head," he wrote a friend, "to 
try to be a United States senator." But he was not 
to be senator then, or ever. 

Slavery had now roused terrible passions through- 
out the country. Blood had been shed in Kansas. 
Bitter were the speeches delivered in the Senate. 
Lincoln made ready to take his great part. For years 
he had "moused around libraries," studying the slavery 
question on every side — legal, historical and moral. 
To a perfect knowledge of the subject, that made his 
arguments unanswerable, was added the skill and 
eloquence of an orator, strong and effective from long 
practice. And now clearer and clearer was it, that 
the secret of his great power over men lay in his sym- 
pathy and understanding of the "plain people," whom, 
as he once said, "God must have loved, because he 
made so many of them." Himself one of them, born 
in a house as poor as any, he knew from his own life 
their ambitions and ideals, knew just how they felt 
and reasoned, just how they could be moved. This 
sympathy and understanding grew deeper and stronger 
with the years, and, when he became President, the 
people were ever close to his great heart. And the 
people, in their turn, gave love for love, and always 
claimed him as their own, proud of his greatness and 
power. 

In the first Illinois State Convention of the new 
Republican Party, held in the spring of 1856, in answer 
to loud calls for "Lincoln! Lincoln!" he spoke, inter- 
rupted by ringing cheers. He ended with words 
that sounded a mighty challenge. "'Kansas shall be 

163 



free!" he cried. "We will say to the Southern dis- 
unionists, we won't go out of the Union, and you 
SHAN'T !" The newspaper men were so carried away 
with the passion of his eloquence that they forgot to 
take notes of what he said, and this became his famous 
"Lost Speech." 

A few weeks later in the first Republican National 
Convention at Philadelphia, Fremont was made candi- 
date for President of the United States ; Lincoln was 
nominated for Vice-President, and his delighted 
friends in Illinois said that he was "already on the 
track for the presidency." But again, though with 
growing fame, he failed of election. 

THE GREAT LINCOLN-DOUGLAS DEBATES 

In 1858 Douglas's six years' term as senator ended. 
He had pleased the slave-holders of the South by his 
Kansas-Nebraska Bill, and he now tried to win back 
the favor of the North, and of the voters of his own 
free State of Illinois, by declaring that the purpose of 
his bill was to make each state free to decide all 
questions for itself, subject to the Constitution. This 
was his "great principle of popular sovereignty." The 
question then at once arose : Would a territory before 
it became a state have the right to exclude slavery? 
And he had replied : "That is a question for the courts 
to decide." Unfortunately the decision was in favor 
of slavery. The Supreme Court of the United States 
declared in the case of a poor negro called Dred Scott, 
that the personal right to hold slaves as property, 
under the Constitution could not be set aside by the 
government of a territory. This denied the right of 
any territory to free itself from slavery, even if it 
wished to. Quickly alarm spread in the North. 

164 



Douglas declared that he did not care "whether slavery 
be voted up or down," but that it must be decided 
by a fair vote of the people. 

The Democrats of Illinois again nominated Douglas 
for senator, and the Republicans answered the nomina- 
tion by declaring that : "The Hon. Abraham Lincoln 
is our first and only choice for United States senator." 
The day after his nomination, Lincoln delivered his 
speech of acceptance in the State House at Springfield. 
Little by little he had thought it out, writing it on bits 
of paper, which he tucked away in his high hat. Now 
before floor and galleries packed with cheering throngs, 
like a trumpet his voice proclaimed the danger threat- 
ening the country — the danger of becoming "all slave" 
in consequence of the decision of the Supreme Court: 
** 'A house divided against itself cannot stand,' " he 
said. "I believe that a government cannot endure 
permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect 
the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house 
to fall, but I do expect it will cease to be divided. 
It will become either all one thing, or all the other." 
That was his first principle, the Union undivided. 
His second principle was equally simple: "No man 
is good enough to govern another man without that 
other's consent." 

Again Lincoln had shown his great courage. Many 
of his friends had asked him to change his speech, 
fearing it would prevent his election, but unmoved 
he replied: "It is true. I would rather be defeated 
with that speech than be victorious without it." And 
after it had been delivered, he said : "If I had to draw 
a pen across and erase my whole life from existence, 
and I had one poor gift or choice left as to what I 
should save from the wreck, I should choose that 
speech." Herndon alone had said, "Lincoln, deliver 

165 



it just as it reads. It will aid you, if it will not make 
you President of the United States." 

He now challenged Douglas to meet him in a series 
of joint debates. At the very beginning of the fight, 
four years before, Douglas had felt the keenness of 
Lincoln's steel, and he knew the difficulty of defend- 
ing his own record. But he took up the challenge, 
telling his friends: "I shall have my hands full. Lin- 
coln is the strong man of his party, full of wit, facts, 
dates and, with his droll ways and dry jokes, the best 
stump speaker in the West. He is as honest as he is 
shrewd and, if I beat him, my victory will be hardly 
won. I would rather meet any other man in the 
country than Abraham Lincoln." Yet Lincoln had 
no confidence of victory. "With me," he said sadly, 
"the race of ambition has been a failure — a flat failure. 
With him, it has been one of splendid success." 

People came from all over the country to hear the 
debates. Crowds would fill the towns where they 
were held and in one place thousands spent the night 
in the fields, their "camp fires spread up and down 
the valley for a mile, making it look as if an army 
were gathered together." Douglas rode on a special 
train; Lincoln, in the crowded cars among the people 
travelling to hear him. At one of these towns Doug- 
las arrived in an elegant carriage drawn by four white 
horses, and was received with the greatest ceremony. 
Lincoln, who hated "fizzlegigs and fireworks," came 
in an old-fashioned, canvas-covered pioneer wagon, and 
the crowd went wild over him. 

The famous battle began between the two cham- 
pions — Douglas, rich, fluent, brilliant ; a politician, 
seeking the popularity of the hour ; Lincoln — poor, pro- 
found, deliberate, high-minded, forgetting himself and 
the people's favor in his passion for truth and justice. 

166 



And it was that passion for truth and justice that gave 
him power. "He's a dangerous man, a very dangerous 
man, sir," said an old Democrat. "He makes you 
believe what he says in spite of yourself !" 

The attack was for Lincoln to make and this is how 
he made it: "Is slavery wrong? That is the real 
issue. It is the eternal struggle between these two 
principles — right and wrong — throughout the world. 
They are the two principles that have stood face to 
face from the beginning of time, and will ever con- 
tinue to struggle. The one is the common right of 
humanity, and the other the divine right of kings." 

It was Douglas's claim that the right of the people 
of a territory to choose whether they would have 
slaves or not went as far back as the time "when God 
made man, and placed good and evil before him, allow- 
ing him to choose his responsibility." Lincoln 
answered: "No! God did not place good and evil 
before man telling him to make the choice. On the 
contrary, God did tell him there was one tree of the 
fruit of which he should not eat upon pain of death." 

Doug|las declared that when the Declaration of 
Independence called all men equal, it did not include 
the negroes. Lincoln replied: "I do not understand 
the Declaration of Independence to mean that all 
men were created equal in all respects. But I believe 
that it does mean to declare that all men are equal in 
some respects. They are equal in their right to 'life, 
liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' Certainly the 
negro is not our equal in color; perhaps not in many 
other respects ; still, in the right to put into his mouth 
the bread that his own hands have earned, he is my 
equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal 
of every living man." 

It was the decision of the Supreme Court that a 

167 



slave-owner could go to a free state and take his negro 
with him, just as he could take his dog or his horse, 
and that in the free state the slave would still remain 
a slave. In vain Douglas tried to square this decision 
with the right of the people of a territory to forbid 
slavery if they wished. Lincoln now pressed for an 
answer to this question: Whether in Douglas's 
opinion there was any lawful way by which a terri- 
tory could exclude slavery before it became a state. 
Lincoln's friends begged him not to ask this question, 
for they said that Douglas would probably answer 
"Yes," satisfy the people of Illinois who opposed 
slavery, and win his election as senator. "I am after 
larger game," instantly replied Lincoln. "If Douglas 
so answers, he can never be President and the battle 
of 1860 is worth a hundred of this." Douglas was 
quick to see that if he should say "No," he would lose 
the senatorship, so he answered "Yes," satisfied the 
politicians of Illinois, and was elected senator, but 
by the same answer he lost the support of the slave- 
holding Democrats of the South, and with them his 
chance for the presidency. Lincoln said that he felt 
about his defeat "like the boy that stubbed his toe — 
it hurt too bad to laugh, and he was too big to cry." 

"FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES- 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN" 

Lincoln's fame was now made, and invitations to 
speak came to him from every part of the United 
States. He went to Ohio, to New England, and in 
New York, in the February of 1860, he spoke in Cooper 
Institute. A large and distinguished audience crowded 
the house, eager to hear the great western orator, 
William Cullen Bryant, famous poet and editor, pre- 

168 



sided. The New York Tribune said the next day that 
"no man ever made such an impression in his first 
appeal to a New York audience." Published in all 
the papers and issued in the form of a pamphlet, this 
speech brought Lincoln before the whole country as a 
new power in politics, and it had an important part in 
securing his election as president. Home again, his 
friends were anxious to begin work at once for his 
nomination for the presidency, and they urged him to 
permit it. At last, wrapping his old grey shawl about 
him, Lincoln said : "I admit that I am ambitious and 
would like to be president. I am not insensible to the 
compliment, but there is no such good luck in store 
for me as the presidency of these United States." Yet 
finally he gave his consent to the use of his name. 

The presidential election of 1860 drew near. New 
and terrible stories were told of the wrongs suffered by 
the negroes. Public discussion in Congress reflected 
the intense bitterness that was fast spreading between 
North and South. The whole country was in a state 
of wild excitement. It was freely said that the South 
would never submit to the election of a Republican 
president — "a Black Republican" was the term used in 
contempt for a man, who believed in freedom for men 
with black skins. Threats of secession were openly 
made in the House and Senate. The South would 
leave the Union, and form an independent government 
of its own. The Democratic Party finally was divided 
in the struggle. Douglas was nominated to represent 
the Democrats of the North, and J. C. Breckinridge 
was chosen to be the candidate for those of the South, 
who were strongly in favor of slavery. 

At the Illinois Republican State Convention, "Old 
Abe" was recognized sitting on his heels just inside 
the door. The governor of Illinois rose, and said: "I 

169 



am informed that a distinguished citizen of Illinois, 
whom Illinois will ever delight to honor, is present. 
I wish to move that this body invite him to a seat 
on the platform." Waiting for a time to excite their 
curiosity, he at last shouted: "Abraham Lincoln." 
Amid a roar of delight, a rush was made for Lincoln. 
On account of the dense crowd, he was "lifted up 
bodily and lay for a few seconds sprawling and kicking 
upon the heads and shoulders of the great throng." 
In this way he was passed up to the platform, which 
he reached "in the arms of some half dozen gentlemen." 
His face red and smiling, he stood, the whole six feet- 
four of him, towering over the other men surrounding 
the speaker, while the crowd "cheered like the roar 
of the sea." Later two fence rails were carried in, 
bearing a banner with the motto : "Abraham Lincoln, 
the Rail Candidate for President in 1860. Two rails 
from a lot made by Abraham Lincoln and John Hanks 
in the Sangamon Bottom, in the year 1830." They 
were borne by John Hanks himself. 

The whole convention rose, beside itself, shouting 
and clamoring for a speech from Lincoln. Promptly 
the delegates to the National Convention at Chicago 
were instructed "to use all honorable means to secure 
his nomination, and to cast the vote of the State as 
a unit for him." 

On the 16th of May, 1860, twelve thousand excited 
people met at Chicago in a huge wooden hall called 
"The Wigwam," especially built for the Republican 
National Convention. From the first, this contest had 
been between "Seward of New York" and "Lincoln of 
Illinois." Seward — statesman and politician, the 
leader of the Republican Party, ex-Governor of New 
York, and now distinguished as a senator, a staunch 
anti-slavery man; Lincoln — a country lawyer of the 

170 



West, known to the nation only by his debates with 
Douglas, and his Cooper Institute speech. But these 
speeches had created a national enthusiasm. Lincoln's 
eager supporters from the West noticed how the 
Easterners had a body of men to cheer for Seward. 
At once they sent out into the city and found two men, 
noted in Chicago for their loud voices. They posted 
them with a crowd, who understood the plan, on each 
side of the great hall. On a signal from the platform, 
at the very first mention of Lincoln's name, such a 
terrific shout went up to the roof that it startled the 
convention. This was all that was needed to rally the 
supporters of Lincoln. The applause for Seward was 
completely drowned, and the hurrahs for Lincoln were 
kept up until he was nominated. A secretary shouted 
his name toward the skylight, and cannon on the roof 
boomed in salute. The cheering spread through the 
crowded streets, and was re-echoed, thundering in the 
convention. Bonfires and fireworks in honor of 
"Honest Old Abe" turned Chicago's night into day, 
and, as the great news spread through the State, all 
Illinois was ablaze with burning tar barrels. 

Two hundred miles away, in the office of the "Spring- 
field Journal," sat Lincoln with his friends, receiving 
returns of each ballot by telegraph. A messenger 
handed the last dispatch to Lincoln, and solemnly 
announced: "The convention has made a nomination 

and Mr. Seward is the second man on the list." 

After reading the telegram, Lincoln started off, saying: 
"Well, there is a little woman down on Eighth Street, 
who will be interested in this news. I will go and 
tell her." A joyous crowd followed him. The next 
evening the members of the committee, sent by the 
convention to notify Mr. Lincoln formally of his 
nomination, arrived in Springfield. Two or three 

171 



hundred people bearing wooden fence rails on their 
shoulders came with them and marched from the 
train to the State House, where they stacked their 
rails like muskets. Again fires blazed, bells rang 
and cannon boomed in rejoiicing. Success never 
spoiled Lincoln. It was during these days that he was 
asked for a sketch of his life. He replied that it con- 
tained nothing but "the short and simple annals of the 
poor," 

The enthusiasm of the people during the campaign 
was "like a prairie fire before a wild tornado." And 
on Nov. 6, 1861, by a great majority he was elected 
the sixteenth President of the United States. Lincoln 
had taken no part in the campaign, but stayed quietly 
in Springfield, where visitors from all over the United 
States crowded to see "the rail splitter," as he was 
called. On account of their great number the ex- 
ecutive room in the State House was given for Mr. 
Lincoln's use. Here both before and after the election, 
with tireless patience, from morning to night, he re- 
ceived the millionaire and the workman, the priest and 
politician, men, women and children, old friends and 
new friends, those who called for love and those who 
sought for office. 

He was firm in his decision to appoint "Democrats 
and Republicans alike to office." And when he was 
pressed to make an unworthy appointment, answered: 
"All that I am in the world — the presidency and all 
else — I owe to the opinion of me which the people 
express, when they call me "Honest Old Abe." Now 
what would they think of their honest Abe, if he 
should make such an appointment?" Keeping faith 
was one of his first principles. To a friend in the 
White House he spoke these words that have since 
become famous: "If you once forfeit the confidence 

172 



of the people, you can never regain their respect and 
esteem. It is true, you may fool all the people some 
of the time. You can even fool some of the people 
all of the time. But you can't fool all of the people 
all of the time." 

About to leave his old Springfield home for Wash- 
ington, Lincoln sat down in his dingy law office with 
Herndon. "Billy," he said, "you and I have been to- 
gether nearly twenty years, and have never 'passed 
a word.' Will you let my name stay on the old sign 
till I come back from Washington?" Herndon, with 
tears in his eyes, put out his hand. "Mr. Lincoln," 
said he, "I will never have any other partner while you 
live." 

Within a few days after Lincoln's election the 
South was in open rebellion, and by February — a 
month before he could take office — seven southern 
states — South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, 
Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas — had left the Union, 
had formed the Confederate States of America, and 
elected Jefferson Davis president. 

On the eleventh of February a special train was 
made ready to bear Lincoln from Springfield. Stand- 
ing bareheaded on its rear platform, he looked in 
silence upon the upturned faces of the great crowd, 
that had been long waiting there in the fast falling 
rain. Then he spoke : 

"My Friends : No one not in my situation can 
appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To 
this place and the kindness of these people I owe 
everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century 
and have passed from a young to an old man. Here 
my children have been born and one is buried. I now 
leave, not knowing when or whether ever, I may 
return, with a task before me greater than that which 

173 



rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of 
that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot 
succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trust- 
ing to Him who can go with me, and remain with you, 
and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope 
that all will yet be well. To His care commending 
you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, 
I bid you an affectionate farewell." 

Everywhere, at railway stations and in cities where 
he spoke on his way east, he was greeted by enthusi- 
astic crowds. Often both his hands were swollen 
by the wild and vigorous shaking they suffered. At 
Cleveland he said: "If all do not join now to save the 
good old ship of the Union on this voyage, nobody 
will have a chance to pilot her on another voyage." 
At Philadelphia on Washington's birthday, in spite 
of the discovery in Baltimore of a plot against his 
life, he himself raised a new flag of thirty-four stars 
over Independence Hall, to celebrate the admission 
of Kansas into the Union as a free state. The whole 
earnestness of his soul he threw into these words of 
his address : "I have often inquired of myself what 
great principle or idea it was that kept this Union so 
long together. It was that sentiment in the Declara- 
tion of Independence, given to the world from this 
hall, which gives liberty not alone to the people of 
this country, but hope to all the world for all future 
times ; which gave promise ;that in due time the 
weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all 
men and that all should have an equal chance. If 
this country cannot be saved without giving up that 
principle, I was about to say I would rather be 
assassinated on this spot than surrender it." 

Assassination was just what his friends feared. So 
they persuaded him to go on to Washington, before 

174 



his announced train, and in advance of his party. 
Even after his safe arrival at the capital, men made 
bets that he would never live to be inaugurated. 

THE INAUGURATION AND AFTER 

On March the fourth, in brilliant spring sunshine, 
Abraham Lincoln, bareheaded — Douglas, his old rival, 
in hearty good will holding his hat and cane — took the 
oath of ofifice before the eastern portico of the Capitol 
in the presence of a great crowd. It was a Southern 
and hostile crowd, well soldiered to prevent an out- 
break. But in his heart, Lincoln "stood reverently 
before that far greater and mightier presence, called 
by himself, 'My rightful masters, the American 
people,' " and to them, above all, he spoke. On the 
platform were the most distinguished men of America. 
Union and peace and friendship were the message of 
his great first inaugural address. But there was 
resolute strength in it, too — the purpose that was 
never to fail. He told the people that he had no right 
nor desire to interfere with slavery in the slave states. 
But, he said: "The Union of these States is perpetual. 
No State upon its own mere motion can lawfully get 
out of the Union. I shall take care, as the Constitu- 
tion itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws 
of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States." 
And he closed: "In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow 
countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue 
of civil war. The Government will not assail you. 
You can have no conflict without being yourselves 
the aggressors. You have no oath registered in 
heaven to destroy the Government ; while I shall 
have the most solemn one to 'preserve, protect and 
defend it.' I am loath to close. We are not enemies, 

175 



but friends. We must not be enemies. Though 
passion may have strained, it must not break our 
bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory 
stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave 
to every living heart and hearthstone all over this 
broad land, w^ill yet swell the chorus of the Union 
when again touched, as surely they will be, by the 
better angels of our nature." 

The appeal of this address stirred the hearts of 
men in the North, but did not alter in the least the 
angry resolve of the slave states, Lincoln, "the new 
pilot, was hurried to the helm in a tornado." Most 
of the South was already in open rebellion, and other 
slave states were ready to join the Confederacy. 
Washington was full of Confederates. The army was 
weak; the navy small and of little use. Many forts 
and arms in quantity were held by the South. The 
treasury was empty and public credit ruined. Even 
among the most loyal in the North there was fear 
for the Union, and a longing for "peace at any price." 
Across the ocean there was much sympathy with the 
South and a desire to help the Southern cause. This 
was now the desperate case of the nation, when Lin- 
coln said : I^As the country has placed me at the helm 
of the ship, I'll try to steer her through." But many, 
even in his own party, looked at their new pilot with 
dismay. How could "Honest Abe" perform a "task 
greater than that which rested upon Washington" — 
"Honest Abe," an obscure country lawyer of Illinois, 
known only by his powerful speeches against slavery, 
and with no experience whatever of the practical work 
of the head of a great nation? Harriet Beecher Stowe, 
the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, wrote that statesmen, 
curious and fearful, watched him from across the sea, 

176 



asking: "Will that awkward old backwoodsman really 
get that ship through?" 

Yet his devotion and practical spirit were soon 
known. When he was pestered by politicians and 
criticized for some of his appointments, he calmly 
said : "The times are too grave and perilous for am- 
bitious schemes and personal rivalries. Let us for- 
get ourselves and join hands like brothers to save 
the Republic." 

To greet the new president, an army of office seekers 
had swarmed to Washington. With their intro- 
ductions and recommendations they invaded the White 
House, and could not be denied. Lincoln, his heart 
set on saving the nation in its terrible crisis, was in 
despair. He said : "I feel like a man letting lodgings 
at one end of his house, while the other end is on 
fire." But, as usual, there were good stories to tell 
of his experiences. One day there came an imposing 
gentleman, who wished to be made minister to some 
foreign country. No such position was available, the 
President told him. For humbler and humbler offices 
the applicant pressed, always to be denied. "Well, 
will you give me a pair of old trousers, then?" begged 
the man. Lincoln used to tell this story with the 
moral : "It is sometimes well to be humble." 

No one knew better than Lincoln the difficulties 
that the Union now faced. He knew that this Civil 
War was not like a foreign war, which would chal- 
lenge the whole nation and have its immediate and 
undivided support. He knew that it must be carried 
on by the people of the North, who were strong in 
their devotion of life and money to save the Union, 
yet divided in their opinion as to how this should be 
done. But now, in power to inspire and hold his fol- 
lowers, through years of failure and discouragement, 

177 



steady to their high purpose, Abraham Lincoln was to 
prove himself the greatest popular leader of America. 

The people trusted him as they had trusted no other 
man since the days of Washington. He wrote even 
more simply than Franklin, so that they read every 
public word that came from his lips or from his pen. 
They understood him as he understood them. Mem- 
bers of his Cabinet sometimes wished his state papers 
to be more elegant and conventional. But he refused 
to make such changes in them and always said : "The 
people will understand." "Step by step," Emerson 
says, "he walked before them ; slow with their slow- 
ness, quickening his march by theirs." 

In selecting his Cabinet, Lincoln chose as his 
advisers the strongest men he could find, and those 
who stood high in the confidence of their own states. 
This meant difficulties. At first it meant friction, 
perhaps jealousy, for a man like Seward, the Secre- 
tary of State, an able and experienced statesman, to 
be the cabinet helper of a man like Lincoln, who had 
but little experience of the daily detail and manage- 
ment of the government. Lincoln was cautious in 
facing his hard task. He could be considerate, gentle, 
even tender, but he was also like a rock that cannot 
be moved, once he made up his mind in that careful 
way of his. And he allowed no one to share his 
responsibilities. 

Within a month of the inauguration, Seward took 
the liberty of submitting to Lincoln a paper, practically 
dictating a policy for the government, and suggesting 
himself as a capable person to direct it. His dismis- 
sal with the reason published would have meant his 
ruin. But Lincoln, appearing not to see the insult, 
kindly and firmly asserted his own authority. Seward 
was completely conquered and his generous friend- 

178 



ship won. Two months later he wrote : "Executive 
force and vigor are rare qualities ; the President is 
the best of us." 

Wonderful was this power of Lincoln's over men. 
When a little later it became necessary to appoint 
a new Secretary of War, he chose Stanton, an able 
and honest man, a hard worker, practical and big 
hearted. But he was a quick and passionate man, 
and for years had heaped insult and abuse upon 
Lincoln, that "giraffe of a lawyer," as he had once 
called him. Friends protested at the appointment 
and no one was more surprised than Stanton himself. 
But the hot-tempered Secretary of War soon became 
the President's devoted friend and earnest helper. 

Good humored wisdom was one secret of Lincoln's 
success in managing men. A major-general had ac- 
cused Stanton of favoritism. The angry Secretary read 
his answer to the President, who kept continually 
interrupting him with a hearty: "That's right! Just 
what he deserves !" Or, "Score him ! Good for you !" 
Then while Stanton, much pleased, was folding up 
the letter to place it in the open envelope, Lincoln 
asked: "What are you going to do with it now?" 
"Why, send it, of course," said Stanton, looking blank. 
"Don't do that," said Lincoln laughing. "I believe 
he does deserve it. But put it in the stove. That's 
the way I do, when I've written a letter while I'm 
mad. You've had a good time writing it, and you 
feel better. Now burn it." 

THE BEGINNING OF THE LONG WAR 

Many at the North were eager to punish the South- 
ern rebellion at once, but Lincoln waited. On the 
twelfth of April, 1861, the Confederacy began the 

179 



war in South Carolina by firing upon the Union flag 
flying over Ft. Sumter. At the call, the whole North 
sprang to arms. One man in the South clearly fore- 
saw the end. "The firing upon that fort/' said 
Robert Toombs, the Secretary of State of the Con- 
federacy, "will inaugurate a civil war greater than 
any the world has yet seen. You will wantonly 
strike a hornet's nest, which extends from mountains 
to ocean, and legions now quiet will swarm out and 
sting us to death. It is unnecessary; it puts us in 
the wrong; it is fatal." 

From the very first Lincoln declared the war to be 
for the Union, not against slavery. The unreason- 
ing anti-slavery men hotly criticized this, but the 
President stood firm and unshaken in his purpose. 
He did not hate slavery less, but he believed that 
slavery would not long survive the victory of the 
North ; and his oath of office, as he repeatedly said, 
charged him first to save the Union. 

In answer to a call for seventy-five thousand 
volunteers, hundreds of thousands of men, from all 
over the North, offered themselves. Arms and money 
were given freely to the government. Waiting was 
over. The time to act had come. Troops from Massa- 
chusetts, the first on the way to Washington, were 
attacked in Baltimore by a mob under the Confederate 
flag on April 19, the very day of the first bloodshed 
in the Revolution. On that same day the President 
declared a blockade of the whole southern coast, which 
closed the port cities of the Confederacy to help that 
might come by sea. The excitement in the North 
rose to fever heat. Washington was in danger of 
capture by the Confederacy, whose forces were gather- 
ing nearby. If the Southern army had taken Wash- 
ington, the capital, the great powers of Europe would 

180 



probably at once have recognized the Confederacy as 
an independent nation. But at last the Northern 
soldiers arrived and Washington was safe. Public 
opinion in support of the Union grew^ in Maryland 
and prevented the state from joining the South. Lin- 
coln saved Kentucky and Missouri for the North, but 
Virginia joined the Confederacy; so did Arkansas, 
Tennessee and North Carolina. Robert E. Lee w^as 
made Commander-in-Chief of the Confederate army, 
and Richmond in Virginia, less than one hundred 
miles distant from Washington, was chosen as the 
capital of the Confederate States. 

At this time of crisis, Stephen A. Douglas came out 
strongly in support of Lincoln and toured the North- 
west, speaking with all his great eloquence to hold 
the people loyal to the Union. By the time he reached 
Chicago he was worn and ill, and died in a few weeks 
with a prayer on his lips for the Union. He was 
mourned by Lincoln and the whole North. 

Washington was now alive with Union soldiers 
eager for war. The North was impatient for a great 
battle, impatient to have the war ended "within three 
months." "On to Richmond," was the cry. Lincoln 
often visited the camps, talking with officers and men, 
winning their confidence and affection. Early in the 
summer the first advance began. There were delays, 
but finally the troops, brave and confident of success, 
marched forward into Virginia. On a hot July 
Sunday the battle of Bull Run was fought. It ended 
not in victory but in defeat. By dawn the exhausted 
and disheartened Union soldiers, with their terrible 
tale of killed and wounded, staggered across Long 
Bridge to Washington. This first stunned the North, 
but when at last men realized how great a war had 
started, they were filled with resolution to prepare 

181 



rightly for it, and to fight the struggle through and 
save the Union. 

Lincoln soon gave the chief command of the United 
States army to George B. McClellan, a dashing young 
general, fresh from successes in West Virginia, an 
able organizer and drill master, who later delighted 
all Washington by his reviews and parades. He failed 
as a fighting man but he did the nation one great 
service. He created the splendid Army of the 
Potomac. 

About the end of the year of 1861, war with England 
threatened. Two men. Mason and Slidell, had been 
sent by the Confederacy to act as commissioners in 
France and England. They escaped from the block- 
ade on the Trent, a British vessel. But the Trent was 
caught and they were taken from it by the captain of 
an American man-of-war, who at once received a vote 
of thanks from the House of Representatives. The 
country was in raptures over the capture, when the 
British government demanded their immediate release. 
Northern feeling, shared even by Seward, the Secre- 
tary of State, was unanimous for keeping them and 
braving England, but Lincoln's strong hand was on 
the helm of the ship. He gave up the prisoners and 
avoided a new and desperate war. 

Boldly, in his first annual message to Congress, 
Lincoln declared that the rebellion of the South was 
"a war largely, if not exclusively, .upon the first 
principles of popular government — the rights of the 
people." In the South, he said, arguments were used 
"to prove that large control of the people in govern- 
ments is the source of all political evil. He declared 
that the South wished not only to keep negro slaves, 
but that it wished to limit the white man's right to 
vote, and even hinted at monarchy "as a possible 

183 



refuge from the power of the common people." And 
then in clear words he showed how the whole pros- 
perity of the nation was based upon the labor of the 
common people and upon their virtues. And so 
"raising" a warning voice against this approach of re- 
turning despotism," he brought it home to the heart 
of the country that "the struggle of today is not alto- 
gether for today — it is for a vast future also." 

In the old Springfield days Lincoln had said : "Years 
ago I was a hired laborer. The hired laborer of yes- 
terday labors on his own account today, and will hire 
others to labor for him tomorrow. Advancement is 
the order of things in a society of equals. As labor is 
the common burden of our race, so the effort of some 
to shift their share of the burden onto the shoulders 
of others is the great durable curse of the race." Be- 
fore the struggle ended, he was to call the purpose of 
the South "a war upon the rights of working people." 

The aristocracy of the old South was founded on 
slavery. The educated few lived upon the unpaid toil 
of the uneducated many, and ruled them with com- 
plete and unquestioned power. Its destruction was 
the victory of democracy, the rule of all the people, 
under this leader, who had sprung from the common 
people and who had himself known poverty, toil and 
hardship. 

Meanwhile Gen. McClellen was organizing and 
drilling his fine army, but he was willing to make no 
move against the South. "All quiet along the Poto- 
mac," became a joke in the North, where men were 
growing more and more impatient of "the Virginia 
Creeper," as they called the Commander-in-Chief. In 
the early winter of 1863 came the news of Gen. U. S. 
Grant's brilliant capture of Forts Henry and Donelson, 
in northern Tennessee, with nine thousand prisoners. 

183 



The commander of Fort Donelson had asked for terms. 
Grant's reply was : "No terms except an unconditional 
and immediate surrender. I propose to move imme- 
diately upon your works." Delighted, the people of 
the North said Grant's initials "U. S." stood for "Un- 
conditional Surrender." Yet Grant was not without 
enemies, and they pressed Lincoln to remove him. 
"But I can't spare the man ; he fights," said Lincoln. 
Then they urged the fact that he drank. Scoffing at 
the false charge, Lincoln asked: "Do you know what 
brand of whiskey? I'd like to send a barrel of it to 
each of my other generals." 

While Grant was fighting and winning victories, Mc- 
Clellan was wasting precious time by hesitation and 
delays. "If Gen. McClellan does not want to use the 
army," Lincoln once said with angry humor, "I would 
like to borrow it." Deaf to all suggestion and advice, 
it seemed that nothing could prod McClellan into ac- 
tion. Finally, he was given an imperative order to 
advance on the enemy. But the order was given in 
vain. All patience at last exhausted, Lincoln removed 
him from the chief command. 

DEFEAT OR VICTORY? 

Defeat after defeat now cast a heavy gloom over 
the North. Many brave boys in blue lay silent on the 
battlefields or sick of fever in the hospitals. A thou- 
sand men, women and children had been horribly 
massacred by Indians in the West. Advice, criticism 
and abuse were poured upon the President, whose 
heart was near breaking under the terrible burden. 
To this was added the death of his little son Willie. 
Almost crazed with grief, he cried : "This is the 
hardest trial of my life. Why is it? Why is it?" 

184 



The nurse comforted him by her sympathy and her 
faith in God. To her, Lincoln spoke of his mother: 
"I remember her prayers," said he, "They have 
chmg to me all my life." From that dark hour, those 
who were near him said, he grew even tenderer to all 
suffering. 

President Lincoln's strength and patience were 
sorely taxed by continual quarreling between members 
of his Cabinet, who often came to him to settle their 
disputes. Tactful and wise, Lincoln was quietly mas- 
ter of them all. With Stanton, Secretary of War, he 
himself had several sharp struggles. He once issued 
an order for an exchange of troops. Stanton refused 
to obey it, and said to the bearer: "Did Lincoln give 
that order?" "He did, sir." "Then he is a fool!" 
stormed Stanton. The bearer returned to Lincoln and 
repeated the words. After a moment's pause, the 
President said calmly: "If Stanton said I was a fool, 
then I must be one ; for he is nearly always right, and 
generally says what he means. I will step over and 
see him." The order was passed. It was this won- 
derful union in him of good humor, firmness and 
nobility that conquered even his enemies. 

By 1862 Lincoln came to feel that slavery should be 
made the second great purpose of the war. This 
would strike directly and hard at the cause of the 
trouble. He saw that it would weaken the Con- 
federate States by lessening their chance of help from 
Europe, and at the same time win sympathy for the 
North. He saw too, that the slaves, once freed, would 
further weaken the South by throwing their strength 
to the side of the Union. Yet he was not sure that 
the time was ripe for a proclamation giving freedom 
to all the negroes of the South. He first tried, instead, 
to accomplish his dream since boyhood, to have the 

185 



slaves freed gradually, and to have the loss made good 
to their owners by the government. "The change," 
he said, in a proclamation, "would come as gently as 
the dews from Heaven, not rending or wrecking any- 
thing. Will you not embrace it?" But the South 
would not part with its property on any terms what- 
ever. 

Slaves were now constantly escaping to the North. 
They were a serious problem that had to be faced. 
What should be done with them? Strong feeling 
for their full freedom swept the country. In July 
Congress passed a law, permitting the employment 
of negroes as soldiers, giving all of them who served 
in the army their freedom, and setting free also the 
families of negro soldiers, whose owners were not 
loyal to the Union. Press and pulpit urged Lincoln 
to give freedom to all the slaves, and they urged it 
with bitter criticism. Bitterly too, they criticized his 
management of the war. It sometimes seemed as if 
they condemned almost every public act of his. 

Lincoln bore much of this abuse with great good 
humor. "It reminds me," he said, "of the big fellow 
whose little wife was wont to beat him over the head, 
without resistance on his part. 'Let her alone,' the 
man said. Tt don't hurt me, and it does her a power 
of good.' " 

In so great a struggle between right and wrong, it 
was natural that the people of the North should claim 
the favor and support of God. And Lincoln, like many 
other great and simple men, who have lived close to 
nature and to their fellows, was deeply religious in 
spirit. A Bible commonly lay on his desk, and he read 
it often. He had said more than once and in many 
ways: "This is God's fight, and He will win it in His 
own good time." But he had also said : "In great 

186 



contests each party claims to act in accordance with 
the will of God. Both may be and one must be wrong. 
God cannot be for and against the same thing at the 
same time." So, to some one who asked if he was sure 
that God was on the side of the North, he quickly- 
answered : "I had never thought of it in that way. 
My concern is to know whether we are on God's 
side." 

To a committee of ministers, urging emancipation, 
who came in September "to reveal God's will" to him, 
he said : "If it is probable that God would reveal His 
will to others on a point so closely connected with my 
duty, it might be supposed he would reveal it directly 
to me. The subject is in my mind day and night. 
Whatever shall appear to be God's will, I will do." 

He had thought the great question out in his own 
grave, silent, resolute way, undisturbed by the noisy 
clamor of the country. As early as midsummer, sev- 
eral hours each day he had sat quietly in the War 
Department Telegraph Office. Here, free from the 
interruptions of the White House, now gazing out of 
the window, now watching a busy colony of spiders 
in a corner, he had framed the mighty sentences of 
the Emancipation Proclamation, a great step to which 
his whole life had led. Not even his Cabinet knew that 
he had done this. The proclamation had been secretly 
finished, when he wrote these words : "My paramount 
object is to save the Union, and not either to save or 
destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without 
freeing any slaves, I would do it. And if I could save 
it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would 
also do that. I have here stated my purpose accord- 
ing to my view of ofificial duty; and I intend no 
modification of my oft-expressed personal wish' that 
all men everywhere could be free." In him was no 

187 



loss of sympathy for the negroes, whose "dark, sad 
millions," as the poet Whittier beautifully sang, had 
been waiting for freedom so "patiently and dumb," 
He was working for their freedom, too; and he was, 
as he said, working for "a. peace that would be worth 
the keeping for all future time." 

Meanwhile the Northern army had failed in its 
attempt to take Richmond. Its defeats at Cedar 
Mountain and the second battle at Bull Run followed. 
Lee, at the head of the Confederate army, crossed the 
Potomac into Maryland, and Lincoln "made a prom- 
ise," he told his cabinet, "to himself and to his Maker, 
that if God gave the victory in the approaching battle, 
he would consider that God had decided his questions 
in favor of the slaves." On September 17th came 
the victory of Antietam, and five days later, acting 
under his military authority, in the preliminary Eman- 
cipation Proclamation four million slaves in the rebel- 
lious South were declared to be, "on the first of 
January, 1863," — "thenceforward and forever free." The 
North was completely taken by surprise — the South, 
furious. On New Year's Day, 1863, a reception was 
held at the White House. For three hours the Presi- 
dent stood shaking hands with an endless stream of 
people. At last he was alone with his Cabinet. He 
took a pen to sign the final draft of the Emancipation 
Proclamation. "Mr. Seward," he said, "my right hand 
is almost paralyzed. If my hand trembles, they will 
say I hesitated." Then slowly and firmly he wrote 
"Abraham Lincoln." "If my name ever gets into 
history," he said, "it will be for this act, and my 
whole soul is in it." 

After Antietam, at Fredericksburg, came the most 
bloody defeat of the war. This was followed in the 
spring by the terrible disaster to the Union army at 

188 



Chancellorsville. With the open telegram in his hand, 
Lincoln, his face ashen grey, tottered to a chair gasp- 
ing hoarsely: "What will the country say? Oh, what 
will the country say?" 

But by the midsummer of 1863 the tide of battle 
suddenly turned. On a Sunday evening at sundown, 
after four days of distant booming of cannon, the 
result of the battle still unknown, Lincoln drove out 
to the review of troops near Arlington, He requested 
that one of the bands play "Lead, Kindly Light." 
Then the tears running down his haggard cheeks, he 
followed the music with the words : 

"Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, 

Lead thou me on ; 
'Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see 
The distant scene, one step enough for me." 
Soon came news of Meade's splendid victory at Gettys- 
burg, and from the South, on the same day, the Fourth 
of July, the birthday of the nation, word was 
flashed to Washington of Grant's capture of Vicks- 
burg. Independence Day was celebrated anew, with 
great rejoicing by the North, and Lincoln, beaming 
with happiness, proclaimed a day of "National Thanks- 
giving, Praise and Prayer." Victory was slowly and 
surely coming after the terrible hours of darkness and 
despair, when the South had been successful and de- 
fiant, the North distrustful and often defeated. 

THE PILOT OF THE SHIP 

Through all this perilous time Lincoln often found 
relief from his heavy work and worry in jokes and 
good stories, in his spirit of humor and fun. Said an 
old friend one day: "That laugh has been the Presi- 
dent's life preserver." On the morning after the 
dreadful slaughter of Fredericksburg, he offered to 

189 



read to a Congressman a funny story by Artemus 
Ward, the popular humorist of the day. The Con- 
gressman was shocked and stopped him. Throwing 
down the book, with tears in his eyes, Lincoln said : 
"Mr. Arnold, if I could not get momentary respite 
from the crushing burden I am constantly carrying, 
my heart would break !" 

In these days the change in his appearance was 
marked. His face grew very thin and drawn, his eyes 
heavy and sunken — the light gone out of them, with 
weariness in every line of his great body. "I feel," 
he said, "as though I shall never be glad again." One 
lady who met him at this time said that it seemed as 
if she had seen, not so much the President of the 
United States, as the saddest man in the world. He 
could not sleep at night. To a friend who urged a 
rest, he said: "But the tired part of me is inside and 
out of reach." 

His greatest comfort was his youngest son, "Little 
Tad" — Lincoln had nicknamed him "Tadpole," when 
he was a baby. He loved the boy with all his heart 
and kept him much by his side. In the darkest days 
of the war he still played "horse" and "blindman's 
bufif" with him. Visitors often saw Tad snuggled on 
his lap, or swinging on his chair. In the evening both 
would perhaps be seen bending over some curious 
book sent the President. And when the small head 
drooped drowsily, the little fellow was carried ofif to 
bed in his father's great arms. About Washington 
and even to army headquarters went this faithful little 
escort. At the head of the brilliant Philadelphia Lan- 
cers galloped the President of the United States, his 
high black hat making him seem even taller than he 
was, and "ever on the flanks of the hurrying column 
flew, like a flag or a banneret. Tad's little grey riding 

190 



cloak." The soldiers cheered "like mad" the son 
of their "Father Abraham," as they now called Lincoln. 

On his wall Lincoln kept a large map of the United 
States, and on this he followed carefully and minutely 
the movements of the armies. He studied the cam- 
paigns of the war night and day, he pored over military 
books on strategy; and gained so practical a knowl- 
edge of military problems that he was able to plan 
with his generals and direct them, often surprising 
them by the extent of his knowledge. But the United 
States has never been a military nation, and every 
great war has found it unprepared. In the Civil War, 
the war itself developed the able military leaders who 
were to save the country. From the very first, the 
incompetence of the Union generals was a constant 
anxiety, and McClellan had been the worst of all, 
because his duty was the greatest. When asked one 
day for a pass to Richmond, Lincoln said: "Why, my 
dear sir, it would do you no good. I have given Mc- 
Clellan, and more than two hundred thousand others, 
passes to Richmond, and not a single one of 'em has 
got there yet !" 

A visitor once inquired how many men the Con- 
federates had in the field. "Twelve hundred thousand, 
according to the best authority," replied Lincoln 
gravely. "Good heavens," said the visitor with paling 
face. "Yes, sir! twelve hundred thousand — no doubt 
of it ! You see, all of our generals, when they get 
whipped, say the enemy outnumbered them from three 
or five to one, and I must believe them. We have 
four hundred thousand men in the field and three times 
four makes twelve. Don't you see?" 

Grant, soon known to the discouraged North by the 
victories he won, changed all this. He was "the man" 
the Cause needed, "fit to do as well as to plan." After 

191 



the battle of Vicksburg, Lincoln said to a friend: 
"Grant is the first general I've had. He's a general. 
You know how it's been with all the rest. As soon 
as I put a man in command of the army, he'd come to 
me with the plan of a campaign and about as much 
as say: 'Now I don't believe I can do it but if you 
say so, I'll try it on,' and so put the responsibility of 
success or failure on me. They all wanted me to be 
general. Now it isn't so with Grant. He hasn't told 
me what his plans are. I don't know and I don't want 
to know. I am glad to find a man who can go ahead 
without me. The great thing about him is his cool 
persistency of purpose. He is not easily excited and 
he has the grip of a bulldog. When he once gets his 
teeth in, nothing can shake him off." 

From the first, Lincoln was devoted to the army. In 
the hospitals and on the field he came to know the 
"Boys in Blue" personally, and no visitors at the White 
House were so welcome as they or those who came 
on their business. His simple, friendly, democratic 
ways won their hearts, and they soon learned to come 
to him freely in every need. 

As he signed a pardon for a boy soldier who had 
been condemned to be shot for sleeping on sentry 
duty, Lincoln said to a man at his side: "It is not to 
be wondered at that a tired boy raised on a farm, 
probably in the habit of going to bed at dark, should 
fall asleep at his post. I can not think of going into 
eternity with the blood of that poor young man on 
my hands." Afterwards, this same soldier was found 
dead on the battle field at Fredericksburg; next his 
heart a photograph of Lincoln, on which he had writ- 
ten : "God bless President Lincoln." 

Again, a Union general urged upon Lincoln the 
execution of twenty-four deserters, as an example to 

192 



the rest of the army. "Mr. General," the President 
replied, "there are already too many weeping widows 
in the United States. For God's sake, don't ask me 
to add to the number, for I won't do it." To a sor- 
rowing mother, a Mrs. Bixby, he wrote this beautiful 
letter of comfort: 

"Dear Madam: 

I have been shown in the files of the War 
Department a statement of the Adjutant-General of 
Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons 
who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I 
feel how weak and fruitless must be any words of mine 
which should attempt to beguile you from the grief 
of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from 
tendering to you the consolation that may be found 
in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray 
that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of 
your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished 
memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride 
that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice 
upon the altar of freedom. A. Lincoln." 

Many a noble life was given in love and devotion 
to the cause. But no life was given in devotion deeper 
than that filling the great heart of Lincoln. The work 
and care wore terribly upon him. Burdened with the 
worry and the crowding important business that was 
never done, with tireless patience he still faced the 
opposition and insults of his enemies, the quarrels of 
his Cabinet, the endless procession of callers. Often 
in his long skirted, faded dressing gown and blue 
woolen socks, his slippers thrown off, he listened 
to them, leaning forward, his hands clasping his knees. 
Long nights, when the world was asleep, he sat tired 
out by the telegraph in the War Office, his whole soul 
intent on the news from the front, so often worse than 

193 



suspense. Regular hours for meals were impossible. 
He said that he "just browsed round a little now and 
then." 

Often after "a mighty hard day" he sat in his chair, 
in the White House, utterly exhausted. "I sometimes 
fancy," he said with his quaint humor, "that everyone 
of the numerous grist ground through here daily, 
from a Senator seeking a war with France, down to 
a poor woman after a place in the Treasury Depart- 
ment, darted at me with thumb and finger, picked out 
his especial piece of my vitality and carried it off." 

Lincoln lived in constant danger of assassination. 
From the first, special care was taken to guard the 
White House and its grounds, but without his knowl- 
edge. A force of cavalry was once placed at the gates 
but Lincoln, as he said, "worried till he got rid of it." 
There were many open and secret threats to take his 
life. Yet fearless he often walked or rode unguarded 
about the capital. As the South grew desperate in its 
losing struggle and Lincoln's enemies at the North 
more bitter, the peril steadily increased. "I long ago 
made up my mind," he said calmly, "that if anybody 
wants to kill me, he will do it. If I wore a shirt of 
mail and kept myself surrounded by a bodyguard, it 
would be all the same." 

One dark night on leaving the White House, he 
picked up a heavy cane, saying good naturedly: 
"Mother (Mrs. Lincoln) has got a notion into her 
head that I shall be assassinated, and to please her 
I take a cane when I go over to the War Department 
at nights, — when I don't forget it." Later, one even- 
ing in the summer of 1864, the President's favorite 
saddle-horse came tearing up to the gates of the Sol- 
diers' Home, Lincoln, hatless, on its back. A shot 
fired down the road, he said, had frightened the animal. 

194 



Searching the place, the President's high hat was 
found with a bullet hole through the crown. Mr. 
Lincoln gave orders that nothing be said about the 
attempt, but after that he never rode alone. 

THE UNION SAVED ! THE SLAVES FREED ! 

The victories of Gettysburg and Vicksburg had 
given hope once more to the discouraged North. By 
the success of the Union in these two great battles 
final victory was assured. The cause of the rebellion 
had failed, but by desperate fighting the South pro- 
longed the war for over a year and a half. Negro 
laborers, lost to the Southern armies, became soldiers 
of the North and, with courage that never flinched, 
fought side by side with their white brothers for the 
Union that had freed them. By the end of the war two 
hundred thousand had enlisted. Many a story was told 
of their devotion to the fiag. In a fierce fight the 
colors of the 55th Massachusetts were shot away, and 
a black soldier volunteered to bring them back. 
Creeping forward on his hands and knees, he wrapped 
the colors about his body, and, though bullet after 
bu^llet struck him until he was fatally wounded, he 
succeeded in crawling back, saving the flag. 

Farther and still farther south floated the stars and 
stripes — "Old Glory," as people delighted to call the 
flag of the Union. In September Gen. Thomas by his 
splendid fighting in a great battle won the honor of 
the name, "The Rock of Chickamauga." With this 
new hope in men's hearts, there was a great gathering 
on the nineteenth of November on the field of Gettys- 
burg in honor of the heroes who had fallen there. 
Lincoln rose gravely in the presence of his Cabinet 
and of a vast crowd. Silently, reverently they listened 
to these deathless words : 

195 



"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought 
forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in 
liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men 
are created equal. 

"Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing 
whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and 
so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a 
great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedi- 
cate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for 
those who here gave their lives that that nation might 
live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should 
do this. 

"But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate — we can- 
not consecrate — we cannot hallow — this ground. The 
brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have 
consecrated it far above our poor power to add or 
detract. The world will little note nor long re- 
member what we say here, but it can never forget 
what they did here. It is for us, the living, rather, 
to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which 
they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. 
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great 
task remaining before us — that from these honored 
dead we take increased devotion to that cause for 
which they gave the last full measure of devotion ; 
that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not 
have died in vain; that this nation, under God, shall 
have a new birth of freedom ; and that government 
of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not 
perish from the earth." 

That same autumn came the great victory of Chat- 
tanooga — Grant, Thomas, Sherman and Sheridan, all 
on the field and all generals that the war itself had 
found, trained and developed. The next spring, Grant 
was made Lieutenant-General, a rank that had been 

196 



held only by Washington in the Revolution, and by 
Scott, the hero of the Mexican War. Within the few 
days following he was in Washington, and for the 
first time stood face to face with Lincoln. 

Now in command of all the Union armies, Grant 
took personal charge of the Army of the Potomac and 
began at once his famous march on Richmond, the 
Confederate capital. In the fearful battles in the 
swamps of the Wilderness, at Spottsylvania and Cold 
Harbor, all north of Richmond and in eastern Vir- 
ginia, he lost forty thousand men. The nation turned 
sick at the slaughter, but Grant was working towards 
victory, and he wired: "I propose to fight it out on 
this line, if it takes all summer." In August came 
Admiral Farragut's capture of Mobile, now the most 
important, and one of the last, of the Confederate 
ports on the Gulf of Mexico to be closed. Early in 
September Sherman wired from Georgia : "Atlanta 
is ours, and fairly won." 

Meanwhile Lincoln's term as president was drawing 
to its end. Loud was the demand for his re-election, 
loud the opposition. "It is the people's business," said 
Lincoln. And just before the election, when the dread- 
ful losses of Grant's battles had thrown a cloud over 
the whole North, against the advice of all his friends, 
he took the unpopular step of signing a draft for five 
hundred thousand new troops. "It matters not what 
becomes of me," he said. "We must have the men. If 
I go down, I Intend to go like the ship Cumberland, 
with my colors flying." 

But the people rallied round Lincoln. They told 
each other Lincoln's own story of the old Dutch far- 
mer who said it was "not best to swap horses while 
crossing a stream." The campaign song, "We are 
coming. Father Abraham, three hundred thousand 

197 



strong," rang- from East to West. In vain did his 
enemies and an abusive press attack him, and seek 
to prove him unfit for his place at the helm. The 
people knew and loved him and would have no other 
pilot to finish the voyage. He was re-elected by a 
vast majority and Grant telegraphed: "The victory is 
worth more to the country than a battle won." 

On New Year's Day, 1865, again there was a recep- 
tion at the White House. A group of negroes stood 
for hours on the lawn, "timid and doubting," it was 
said, "like a herd of wild creatures from the wood." 
At last they crept quietly into his presence. At his 
cordial welcome, they crowded round him, kissing his 
hands, sobbing and laughing: "God bress Massa 
Linkum." 

Lincoln was now eager "to clinch the matter" of 
slavery, and promptly in January Congress followed 
his wish by adding to the Constitution of the United 
States an amendment forever forbidding slavery in 
every part of the United States. Then it was that 
Lincoln happily said: "This ends the great job." 

On the fourth of March, 1865, heavy clouds covered 
the sky, but as Lincoln moved forward to take the 
oath of office, a dazzling flood of sunshine poured 
down upon him. From the east portico of the Capitol, 
he raised his hand to silence the cheers and shouts 
that rose from below and then, with new power in 
his clear, strong voice, read his second inaugural. In 
it, says his friend, Carl Schurz, "he poured out the 
whole devotion and tenderness of his great soul. It 
had all the solemnity of a father's last admonition and 
blessing to his children before he lay down to die." 
These were its closing words: 

"Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that 
this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. 

198 



Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth 
piled by the bondman's two hundred and fifty years 
of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop 
of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another 
drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand 
years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgements of 
the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' 

"With malice toward none ; with charity for all ; 
with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see 
the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are 
in ; to bind up the nation's wounds ; to care for him 
who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, 
and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and 
cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves, and 
with all nations." 

Meanwhile Sherman had marched through Georgia, 
as the old war song says, "from Atlanta to the Sea." 
He had destroyed the last resources of the Confeder- 
ates. On the second of April, Petersburg, near Rich- 
mond, fell and Lincoln went to visit the captured city. 
The Union regiments they passed on the way shouted 
lustily: "Three cheers for Uncle Abe." Confederate 
soldiers in the grey uniform of the South, prisoners 
on a transport in the river, rushed to the rail to see 
Lincoln's barge pass. They were eating chunks of 
bread and meat. And these were their cries: "That's 
Old Abe." "Give the old fellow three cheers." "Hello. 
Abe, your bread and meat's better than pop-corn !" 

The next day Richmond fell, the capital and last 
stronghold of the Confederates. "Thank God," said 
Lincoln earnestly, "that I have lived to see this ! It 
seems to me I have been dreaming a horrid dream 
for four years, and now the nightmare is gone. I want 
to see Richmond." 

At the river landing a group of negroes were digging, 

199 



One of them, an old man of sixty, leaped forward. 
"Bress de Lord," he cried exulting, "dere is de great 
Messiah ! I knowed him as soon as I seed him. He's 
bin in my heart fo' long yeahs, and he's cum at las' 
to free his chillum from dere bondage ! Glory Halle- 
lujah !" And falling on his knees he kissed Lincoln's 
feet. Surrounded by kneeling negroes, Lincoln spoke. 
"Don't kneel to me," he said. "That's not right. 
Kneel to God only and thank Him for liberty." Form- 
ing a ring they sang a hymn in their rich, musical 
voices, and the deserted streets filled with negroes, 
till a crushing mass surrounded the little party. Silent 
as death they were as again he spoke: "My poor 
friends, you are free — free as air. You can cast off 
the name of slave and trample upon it; it will come 
to you no more. God gave you liberty as He gave 
it to others. But you must try to deserve this price- 
less boon. Let the world see that you merit it. Learn 
the laws and obey them. Obey God's commandments, 
and thank Him for giving you liberty, for to Him you 
owe all things." 

Then through the dusty heat he passed on, to the 
negroes' shrieks of delight, "lookin' at las'," as one of 
them cried, "on our spring of life." Crowds were 
around him and above him, for curious forms hung 
out of every window. 

Many Southerners admired and respected Lincoln 
even in those days. Throughout the bitterness and 
hatred of the long war, he had been the South's best 
friend in the North. Visiting the hospitals one day, a 
doctor tried to turn him away from a ward of prison- 
ers, saying: "They are rebels." "You mean," said 
Lincoln, as he pushed on into the room, "they are 
Confederates." He honored the valor of the great 
generals of the South. Of Stonewall Jackson he had 

200 



said : "He is a brave, honest soldier. What a pity we 
should have to fight such a gallant fellow !" And as 
he stood studying Lee's picture on the very day he 
himself, though he little knew it, was to face death, 
he exclaimed : "It is the face of a brave and noble man !" 

Back again in Washington the great news came on 
April 9th that on that day Lee, after retreating from 
Richmond, had been forced to surrender to Grant at 
Appomatox Court House the remnants of his shattered 
army. With full hearts the Cabinet met, and at Lin- 
coln's word, silently and in tears, they knelt and gave 
humble thanks to God. 

Lincoln himself carried the good news to Seward, 
who was sick. With boyish delight he threw himself 
full across the bed and with his head on one hand, 
told of the dramatic end of the war. "And now for 
a day of Thanksgiving," he cried. The wildest delight 
filled the land, celebrating the end of the long and 
terrible war between the Blue and the Gray. The 
Union was safe at last. The nation had been created 
anew. A greater freedom had been won in the strug- 
gle, and Abraham Lincoln w^as hailed as the Liberator. 

THE SAVIOR OF HIS COUNTRY 

But swiftly now the shadow of the future fell upon 
Lincoln in a dream. On the night of April 13th, he 
seemed to be on a singular and indescribable vessel, 
moving with great rapidity toward a dark and indefi- 
nite shore. The next morning was Good Friday. He 
told his Cabinet of his dream — a dream that he had had 
many times before, always followed by some great 
battle of the war. He said: "It must relate to Sher- 
man. I know of no other very important event which 
is likely just now to occur." 

201 



But his dream did not depress him. As he drove 
out in the balmy spring afternoon — dogwood abloom 
on the hills and the scent of lilacs in the air — happiness 
filled his heart. "Mary," he said to his wife, "we have 
had a hard time of it, since we came to Washington. 
But the war is over, and with God's blessing we may 
hope for four years of peace and happiness here in 
Washington ; and then we will go back to Illinois and 
pass the rest of our lives in quiet." He was as light- 
hearted as a boy at the thought. During the afternoon 
he signed a pardon for a young soldier, who had been 
sentenced to be shot for desertion. "I think the boy 
can do us more good above ground, than under 
ground," he said. His last acts were those of mercy. 

For that evening Mrs. Lincoln had invited a party 
to dinner and the theatre. The beautiful Laura Keene 
was playing in "Our American Cousin" at the Ford 
Theatre. Happy and joking, the life of his little party, 
Lincoln sat in the President's box, that was heavily 
draped with flags. The scene was brilliant — rich cos- 
tumes, jewels, perfumes everywhere. The very air 
was charged with excitement and joy of victory — vic- 
tory and promised peace. 

At ten twenty all the audience were intent on the 
play. Suddenly a pistol shot rang out, sharp and 
clear; then a struggle in the President's box, and a 
man leaped for the stage, pistol and dagger in hand. 
The flag of the Union, as if to avenge its preserver, 
caught the assassin's spur and hurled him headlong. 
With a broken leg he ran limping into the wings of 
the theatre, in the confusion escaped to his waiting 
horse, and clattered away into the blackness of the 
night. Then Mrs. Lincoln's cry of anguish, "He has 
killed the President!" Then confusion, tears and sobs, 
spreading from the theatre throughout the city. Ten- 

202 



derly they bore him to a house opposite. Silent and 
unconscious he lay through the long night — all Wash- 
ington watching, and praying for his life. The next 
morning, early, but in the full light of day, his great 
heart ceased to beat and Stanton, the friend who had 
become as a brother, whispered to those at the quiet 
bedside: "Now he belongs to the ages." 

Wrapped in the flag of the Union for which he had 
lived and died, Abraham Lincoln lay serene in noble 
peace at the Capitol. Stunned with anguish and rage 
the whole nation bowed helpless, crushed by the horror 
of his death. Victory with her cheers and waving 
flags vanished from the land, and in her place were the 
tears and crape of Sorrow. On the solemn journey of 
more than a thousand miles back to Springfield, watch 
fires blazed throughout the night. And multitudes 
gathered almost without interval, standing silent with 
uncovered heads to watch the passing of the funeral 
train — engine and cars all draped and swathed in black. 
At the great cities it stopped, that men might do fitting 
honor to their beloved dead. Guarded to his grave 
by great generals, by statesmen and by devoted friends, 
he was laid to rest at Springfield, his old home. 

All the world paid tribute to Abraham Lincoln — 
kings, queens and emperors, republics and cities — the 
peoples of Europe, of South America, of India and 
China. All the world has ever since been raising 
monuments in his honor. And from that day to this, 
his life has been an example to all mankind, an example 
and an inspiration always to greater justice, good will 
and love among men. 

The workingmen of London sent this message of 
comfort to America: "Abraham Lincoln has endeared 
himself to the toiling millions of the civilized world. 
The loss of such a man is ours as well as yours. He 

203 



is enshrined in the hearts of the laborers of all coun- 
tries, as one of the uncrowned monarchs of the world." 
Emilio Castelar, before the Spanish Cortes in Madrid, 
said : "Abraham Lincoln was the humblest of the 
humble before his own conscience, the greatest of the 
great before history." "He dies and makes no sign," 
said a London paper, "but the impress of his noble 
character and aims will be borne by his country while 
time endures. He dies, but his country lives; free- 
dom has triumphed; the broken chains at the feet of 
the slaves are the mute witness of his victory." 

And his friend, Walt Whitman, voiced the love of 
America in these beautiful lines: 

O CAPTAIN! MY CAPTAIN! 

In Memory of Abraham Lincoln 

O Captain ! my Captain ! our fearful trip is done, 
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we 

sought is won, 
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all 

exulting. 
While follow eyes the steady keel the vessel grim 
and daring; 

But O heart! heart! heart! 

O the bleeding drops of red. 
Where on the deck my Captain lies. 
Fallen cold and dead. 
O Captain ! my Captain ! rise up and hear the bells ; 
Rise up — for you the flag is flung — for you the bugle 

trills. 
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths — for you the 

shores acrowding. 
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces 
turning; 

204 



Here Captain! dear father! 
This arm beneath your head ! 
It is some dream that on the deck 
You've fallen cold and dead. 
My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still, 
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor 

will, 
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed 

and done. 
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object 
won; 

Exult O shores, and ring O bells! 

But I, with mournful tread, 
Walk the deck my Captain lies. 
Fallen cold and dead. 



205 



SOME INTERESTING BOOKS 

To be Found in Almost Every Public Library. 

FRANKLIN 

Franklin's Autobiography 

The famous story of his own life. 
Benjamin Franklin, by James Parton 

Long and detailed, but extremely interesting. 
The Many Sided Franklin, by Paul Leicester Ford 

Delightful, full of stories and illustrations. 

WASHINGTON 

George Washington, by Woodrow Wilson, President of the 
United States 
A powerful and thrilling story. 
Life of Washington, by Henry Cabot Lodge 

Able, two volume account of Washington's place in 
American history. 
The True George Washington, by Paul Leicester Ford 
Filled with anecdotes and illustrations. 

JEFFERSON 

The Life of Thomas Jefferson, by James Parton 

An enthusiastic and instructive story of his life. 

Thomas Jefferson, by John T. Morse, Jr. 
Jefferson appreciated and criticized. 

Thomas Jefferson, by Henry C. Merwin 
An earnest and interesting little book. 

LINCOLN 

Life of Abraham Lincoln, by Ida M. Tarbell 

Four volumes. A very full, carefully written and read- 
able life of Lincoln. 
The Every Day Life of Abraham Lincoln, by Francis F. 
Browne. 

Fascinating and full of anecdotes. 
The Story Life of Lincoln, by Wayne Whipple 

Five hundred true stories told by Lincoln and his friends. 
Abraham Lincoln, by Brand Whitlock 

A little book, but picturesque and powerful. 



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